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Sib J^sh-a R-n-lds in a Domino. Dr. G-ldsm-th in an Old English Dress.

ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

BY

W. M. THACKERAY,

VANITY FAIR," " PENDENNIS," "THE NEWCOMES," "ESMOND,
"THE FOUR GEORGES," "ADVENTURES OF PHILIP," &c.

fcOitl) Illustrations.

REPRINTED FROM THE "CORNHILL MAGAZINE.'

NEW YORK:

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,

FRANKLIN 8 Q U A B K.

186 3.

Works by W. M. Thackeray.

Roundabout Papers. 12mo, Cloth, $1 00.

The English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century. 12mo,

Cloth, $1 25.

The Four Georges. Engravings. 12mo, Cloth, $1 00.

The Great Hoggarty Diamond. A Novel. 8vo, Paper, 25 cts.

Henry Esmond. A Novel. 8vo, Paper, 25 cents.

Lovell the Widower. A Novel. Engravings. 8vo, Paper

25 cents.
The Newcomes. A Novel. Engravings. 8vo, Cloth, $2 00.
Pendennis. A Novel. Engravings. 8vo, Cloth, $2 00.
The Adventures of Philip. A Novel. Engravings. 8vo, Cloth,

$1 50.
The Rose and the Ring. Fireside Pantomime. Engravings.

Square 4to, Cloth, 75 cents.
Vanity Fair. A Novel. Engravings. 8vo, Cloth, 81 50.
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Published by HARPER & BROTHERS,

Franklin Square, N. Y.

W Harper & Brothers will send either of the ahove Works by Mail, postage
pre-paid on receipt of the Price.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

On a Lazy, Idle Boy 9

On Two Children in Black 18

On Ribbons 28

On some late Great Victories 48

Thorns in the Cushion 58

On Screens in Dining-rooms 71

Tunbridge Toys 81

De Juventute 91

On a Joke I once heard from the late Thomas Hood.. 113

Round about the Christmas-tree 128

On a Chalk-mark on the Door 141

On being Found Out 158

On a Hundred Years Hence 168

Small-beer Chronicle 180

Ogres 193

On Two Roundabout Papers which I intended to Write 205

A Mississippi Bubble 221

On Letts's Diary 234

Notes of a Week's Holiday ..,. 249

Nil Nisi Bonum 281

ON A LAZY, IDLE BOY.

ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

ON A LAZY IDLE BOY.

I had occasion to pass a week in the autumn in
the little old town of Coire or Chur, in the Grisons,
where lies buried that very ancient British king, saint,
and martyr, Lucius,* who founded the Church of St.
Peter, which stands opposite the house No. 65 Corn-
hill. Few people note the church nowadays, and
fewer ever heard of the saint. In the cathedral at
Chur, his statue appears surrounded by other sainted
persons of his family. With tight red breeches, a Ro-
man habit, a curly brown beard, and a neat little gilt
crown and sceptre, he stands, a very comely and cheer-
ful image ; and, from what I may call his peculiar po-
sition with regard to No. 65 Cornhill, I beheld this fig-
ure of St. Lucius with more interest than I should have
bestowed upon personages who, hierarchically, are, I
dare say, his superiors.

* Stow quotes the inscription, still extant, "from the table fast
chained in St. Peter's Church, Cornhill;" and says "he was after
some chronicle buried at London, and after some chronicle buried at
Clowcester" — but, oh ! these incorrect chroniclers ! when Alban But-
ler, in the Lives of the Saints, v. xii., and Murray's Hand-book, and
the sacristan at Chur, all say Lucius was killed there, and I saw his
tomb with my own eves !

A 2

10 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

The pretty little city stands, so to speak, at the end
of the world — of the world of to-day, the world of
rapid motion, and rushing railways, and the commerce
and intercourse of men. From the northern gate, the
iron road stretches away to Zurich, to Basel, to Paris,
to home. From the old southern barriers, before which
a little river rushes, and around which stretch the
crumbling battlements of the ancient town, the road
bears the slow diligence or lagging vetturino by the
shallow Khine, through the awful gorges of the Yia
Mala, and presently over the Spliigen to the shores of
Como.

I have seldom seen a place more quaint, pretty,
calm, and pastoral, than this remote little Chur. What
need have the inhabitants for walls and ramparts, ex-
cept to build summer-houses, to trail vines, and hang
clothes to dry ? No enemies approach the great mould-
ering gates ; only at morn and even, the cows come
lowing past them, the village maidens chatter merrily
round the fountains, and babble like the ever-voluble
stream that flows under the old walls. The school-
boys, with book and satchel, in smart uniforms, march
up to the gymnasium, and return thence at their stated
time. There is one coffee-house in the town, and I
see one old gentleman goes to it. There are shops
with no customers seemingly, and the lazy tradesmen
look out of their little windows at the single stranger
sauntering by. There is a stall with baskets of queer
little black grapes and apples, and a pretty brisk trade
with half a dozen urchins standing round. But, be-
yond this, there is scarce any talk or movement in the
street. There's nobody at the book-shop. "If you

ON A LAZY IDLE BOY. 11

will have the goodness to come again in an hour,"
says the banker, with his mouthful of dinner at one
o'clock, "you can have the money." There is nobody
at the hotel, save the good landlady, the kind waiters,
the brisk young cook who ministers to you. Nobody
is in the Protestant church — (oh ! strange sight, the
two confessions are here at peace !) — nobody in the
Catholic church ; until the sacristan, from his snug
abode in the cathedral close, espies the traveler eying
the monsters and pillars before the old shark-toothed
arch of his cathedral, and comes out (with a view to
remuneration possibly) and opens the gate, and shows
you the venerable church, and the queer old relics
in the sacristy, and the ancient vestments (a black
- velvet cope, among other robes, as fresh as yesterday,
and presented by that notorious "pervert," Henry of
Navarre and France), and the statue of St. Lucius
who built St. Peter's Church, opposite No. 65 Cornhill.
What a quiet, kind, quaint, pleasant, pretty old
town ! Has it been asleep these hundreds and hund-
reds of years, and is the brisk young Prince of the
Sidereal Kealms in his screaming car drawn by his
snorting steel elephant coming to waken it? Time
was when there must have been life, and bustle, and
commerce here. Those vast, venerable walls were
not made to keep out cows, but men-at-arms led by
fierce captains, who prowled about the gates, and
robbed the traders as they passed in and out with
their bales, their goods, their pack-horses, and their
wains. Is the place so dead that even the clergy of
the different denominations can't quarrel? "Why,
seven or eight, or a dozen, or fifteen hundred vears

12 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

ago (they haven't the register, over the way, up to
that remote period. I dare say it was burnt in the
fire of London) — a dozen hundred years ago, when
there was some life in the town, St. Lucius was stoned
here on account of theological differences, after found-
ing our church in Cornhill.

There was a sweet pretty river walk we used to
take in the evening, and mark the mountains round
glooming with a deeper purple ; the shades creeping
up the golden walls ; the river brawling, the cattle
calling, the maids and chatterboxes round the fount-
ains babbling and bawling ; and several times in the
course of our sober walks we overtook a lazy slouch-
ing boy, or hobbledehoy, with a rusty coat, and trow-
sers not too long, and big feet trailing lazily one after
the other, and large lazy hands dawdling from out
the tight sleeves, and in the lazy hands a little book,
which my lad held up to his face, and which I dare
say so charmed and ravished him that he was blind
to the beautiful sights around him; unmindful, I
would venture to lay any wager, of the lessons he had
to learn for to-morrow ; forgetful of mother waiting
supper, and father preparing a scolding; absorbed ut-
terly and entirely in his book.

What was it that so fascinated the young student,
as he stood by the river shore ? Not the Pons Asino-
rum. What book so delighted him, and blinded him
to all the rest of the world, so that he did not care to
see the apple-woman with her fruit, or (more tempt-
ing still to sons of Eve) the pretty girls with their
apple cheeks, who laughed and prattled round the
fountain? What was the book? Do you suppose

ON A LAZY IDLE BOY. 13

it was Livy, or the Greek grammar? No; it was a
Novel that you were reading, you lazy, not very
clean, good-for-nothing, sensible boy ! It was D'Ar-
tagnan locking up General Monk in a box, or almost
succeeding in keeping Charles the First's head on.
It was the prisoner of the Chateau d'lf cutting him-
self out of the sack fifty feet under water (I mention
the novels I like best myself — novels without love or
talking, or any of that sort of nonsense, but contain-
ing plenty of fighting, escaping, robbery, and rescu-
ing)— cutting himself out of the sack, and swimming
to the island of Montecristo. Oh Dumas! oh thou
brave, kind, gallant old Alexandre! I hereby offer
thee homage, and give thee thanks for many pleasant
hours. I have read thee (being sick in bed) for thir-
teen hours of a happy day, and had the ladies of the
house fighting for the volumes. Be assured that lazy
boy was reading Dumas (or I will go so far as to let
the reader here pronounce the eulogium, or insert the
name of his favorite author); and as for the anger, or,
it may be, the reverberations of his schoolmaster, or
the remonstrances of his father, or the tender plead-
ings of his mother that he should not let the supper
grow cold, I don't believe the scapegrace cared one
fig. No ! Figs are sweet, but fictions are sweeter.

Have you ever seen a score of white-bearded, white-
robed warriors, or grave seniors of the city, seated at
the gate of Jaffa or Bey rout, and listening to the story-
teller reciting his marvels out of Antra or the Arabian
Nights ? I was once present when a young gentleman
at table put a tart away from him, and said to his
neighbor, the Younger Son (with rather a fatuous air),
"I never eat sweets."

14 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

" Not eat sweets! and do you know why?" says T.

"Because I am past that kind of thing," says the
young gentleman.

"Because you are a glutton and a sot!" cries the
elder (and Juvenis winces a little). " All people who
have natural, healthy appetites, love sweets ; all chil-
dren, all women, all Eastern people, whose tastes are
not corrupted by gluttony and strong drink." And a
plateful of raspberries and cream disappeared before
the philosopher.

You take the allegory ? Novels are sweets. All
people with healthy literary appetites love them — al-
most all women ; a vast number of clever, hard-head-
ed men. Why, one of the most learned physicians in
England said to me only yesterday, " I have just read
So-and-So for the second time" (naming one of Jones's
exquisite fictions). Judges, bishops, chancellors, math-
ematicians, are notorious novel readers, as well as
young boys and sweet girls, and their kind, tender
mothers. Who has not read about Eldon, and how
he cried over novels every night when he was not at
whist ?

As for that lazy, naughty boy at Chur, I doubt
whether he will like novels when he is thirty years of
age. He is taking too great a glut of them now. He
is eating jelly until he will be sick. He will know
most plots by the time he is twenty, so that he will
never be surprised when the Stranger turns out to be
the rightful earl — when the old waterman, throwing
off his beggarly gabardine, shows his stars and the
collars of his various orders, and, clasping Antonia to
his bosom, proves himself to be the prince, her long-

ON A LAZY IDLE BOY. 15

lost father. He will recognize the novelists' same
characters, though they appear in red-heeled pumps
and ailes-de-pigeon, or the garb of the nineteenth cen-
tury. He will get weary of sweets, as boys of private
schools grow (or used to -grow, for I have done grow-
ing some little time myself, and the practice may have
ended too) — as private school-boys used to grow tired
of the pudding before their mutton at dinner.

And pray what is the moral of this apologue ? The
moral I take to be this : the appetite for novels ex-
tending to the end of the world ; far away in the froz-
en deep, the sailors reading them to one another dur-
ing the endless night; far away under the Syrian stars,
the solemn sheikhs and elders hearkening to the poet
as he recites his tales ; far away in the Indian camps,
where the soldiers listen to 's tales, or 's, aft-
er the hot day's march ; far away in little Chur yon-
der, where the lazy boy pores over the fond volume,
and drinks it. in with all his eyes; the demand being
what we know it is, the merchant must supply it, as
he will supply saddles and pale ale for Bombay or
Calcutta.

But as surely as the cadet drinks too much pale ale,
it will disagree with him ; and so surely, dear youth,
will too much novels cloy on thee. I wonder, do
novel writers themselves read many novels ? If you
go into Gunter's, you don't see those charming young
ladies (to whom I present my most respectful compli-
ments) eating tarts and ices, but at the proper even-
tide they have good plain wholesome tea and bread
and butter. Can any body tell me does the author
of the Tale of Two Cities read novels? does the author

16 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

of the Tower of London devour romances? does the
dashing Harry Lorrequer delight in Plain or Ringlets
or Sponge's Sporting Tour ? Does the veteran, from
whose flowing pen we had the books which delight-
ed our young days, Darnley, and Richelieu, and De
VOrme* relish the works of Alexandre the Great, and
thrill over the Three Musqueteers? Does the accom-
plished author of the Caxtons read the other tales in
Blackwood? (For example, that ghost-story printed
last August, and which, for my part, though I read it
in the public reading-room at the Pavilion Hotel at
Folkestone, I protest frightened me so that I scarce
dared look over my shoulder.) Does Uncle Tom ad-
mire Adam Bede ; and does the author of the Vicar of
Wrexhill laugh over the Warden and the Three Clerks f
Dear youth of ingenuous countenance and ingenuous
pudor! I make no doubt that the eminent parties
above named all partake of novels in moderation — eat
jellies — but mainly nourish themselves upon whole-
some roast and boiled.

Here, dear youth aforesaid ! our Cornhill Maga-
zine owners strive to provide thee with facts as well
as fiction; and though it does not become them to
brag of their Ordinary, at least they invite thee to a
table where thou shalt sit in good company. That
story of the Fox was written by one of the gallant sea-
men who sought for poor Franklin under the awful
Arctic" Night; that account of China is told by the

* By the way, what a strange fate is that which befell the veteran
novelist ! He was appointed her majesty's consul general in Venice,
the only city in Europe where the famous "Two Cavaliers" can not
by any possibility be seen riding together.

ON A LAZY IDLE BOY. 17

man of all the empire most likely to know of what he
speaks ; those pages regarding Volunteers come from
an honored hand that has borne the sword in a hund-
red famous fields, and pointed the British guns in the
greatest siege in the world.

Shall we point out others ? We are fellow-travel-
ers, and shall make acquaintance as the voyage pro-
ceeds. In the Atlantic steamers, on the first day out
(and on high and holidays subsequently), the jellies
set down on table are richly ornamented ; medioque in
fonte leporum rise the American and British flags nobly
emblazoned in tin. As the passengers remark this
pleasing phenomenon, the captain no doubt improves
the occasion by expressing a hope, to his right and
left, that the flag of Mr. Bull and his }^ounger brother
may always float side by side in friendly emulation.
Novels having been previously compared to jellies —
here are two (one perhaps not entirely saccharine, and
flavored with an amari aliquid very distasteful to some
palates) — two novels under two flags, the one that an-
cient ensign which has hung before the well-known
booth of Vanity Fair ; the other that fresh and hand-
some standard which has lately been hoisted on Bar-
chester Towei*s. Pray, sir, or madam, to which dish
will you be helped ?

So have I seen my friends Captain Lang and Cap-
tain Comstock press their guests to partake of the fare
on that memorable "first day out," when there is no
man, I think, who sits down but asks a blessing on
his voyage, and the good ship dips over the bar, and
bounds away into the blue water.

18 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

ON TWO CHILDREN IN BLACK.

Montaigne and Howel's Letters are my bedside
books. If I wake at night, I have one or other of
them to prattle me to sleep again. They talk about
themselves forever, and don't weary me. I like to
hear them tell their old stories over and over again.
I read them in the dozy hours, and only half remem-
ber them. I am informed that both of them tell coarse
stories. I don't heed them. It was the custom of
their time, as it is of Highlanders and Hottentots, to
dispense with a part of dress which we all wear in
cities. But people can't afford to be shocked either
at Cape Town or at Inverness every time they meet
an individual who wears his national airy raiment. I
never knew the Arabian Nights was an improper book
until I happened once to read it in a " family edition."
Well, qui s'excuse. . . . "Who, pray, has accused me as
yet? Here am I smothering dear good old Mrs.
Grundy's objections before she has opened her mouth.
I love, I say, and scarce ever tire of hearing, the art-
less prattle of those two dear old friends, the Peri-
gourdin gentleman and the priggish little Clerk of
King Charles's Council. Their egotism in nowise dis-
gusts me. I hope I shall always like to hear men, in
reason, talk about themselves. What subject does a
man know better? If I stamp on a friend's corn, his

ON TWO CHILDREN IN BLACK. 19

outcry is genuine — he confounds my clumsiness in
the accents of truth. He is speaking about himself,
and expressing his emotion of grief or pain in a man-
ner perfectly authentic and veracious. I have a story
of my own, of a wrong done to me by somebody, as
far back as the year 1838 : whenever I think of it,
and have had a couple glasses of wine, I can not help
telling it. The toe is stamped upon ; the pain is just
as keen as ever ; I cry out, and perhaps utter impre-
catory language. I told the story only last Wednes-
day at dinner :

"Mr. Koundabout," says a lady sitting by me, "how
comes it that in your books there is a certain class (it
may be of men, or it may be of women, but that is not
the question in point) — how comes it, dear sir, there
is a certain class of persons whom you always attack
in your writings, and savagely rush at, goad, poke,
toss up in the air, kick, and trample on ?"

I couldn't help myself. I knew I ought not to do
it. I told her the whole story between the entrees
and the roast. The wound began to bleed again.
The horrid pang was there, as keen and as fresh as
ever. If I live half as long as Tithonus, that crack
across my heart can never be cured. There are
wrongs and griefs that can't be mended. It is all
very well of you, my dear Mrs. G\, to say that this
spirit is unchristian, and that we ought to forgive and
forget, and so forth. How can I forget at will ? How
forgive? I can forgive the occasional waiter, who
broke my beautiful old decanter at that very dinner.
I am not going to do him any injury. But all the
powers on earth can't make that claret-jug whole.

20 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

So, you see, I told the lady the inevitable story. I
was egotistical. I was selfish, no doubt; but I was
natural, and was telling the truth. You say you are
angry with a man for talking about himself. It is be-
cause you yourself are selfish that that other person's
self does not interest you. Be interested by other
people and with their affairs. Let them prattle and
talk to you, as I do my dear old egotists just men-
tioned. When you have had enough of them, and
sudden hazes come over your eyes, lay down the vol-
ume, pop out the candle, and dormez Men. I should
like to write a nightcap book — a book that 3~ou can
muse over, that you can smile over, that you can yawn
over — a book of which you can say, "Well, this man
is so and so, and so and so; but he has a friendly
heart (although some wiseacres have painted him as
black as Bogey), and you may trust what he says."
I should like to touch you sometimes with a reminis-
cence that shall waken your sympathy, and make you
say, To anchk have so thought, felt, smiled, suffered.
Now, how is this to be done except by egotism?
Linea recta brevissima. That right line "I" is the
very shortest, simplest, straightforwardest means of
communication between us, and stands for what it is
worth, and no more. Sometimes authors say, " The
present writer has often remarked ;" or, " The under-
signed has observed ;" or, " Mr. Boundabout presents
his compliments to the gentle reader, and begs to
state," etc.; but "I" is better and straighter than all
these grimaces of modesty; and although these are
Roundabout Papers, and may wander who knows
whither, I shall ask leave to maintain the upright and

ON TWO CHILDREN IN BLACK. 21

simple perpendicular. When this bundle of egotisms
is bound up together, as they may be one day, if no
accident prevents this tongue from wagging, or this
ink from running, they will bore you very likely ; so
it would to read through Howel's Letters from begin-
ning to end, or to eat up the whole of a ham ; but a
slice on occasion may have a relish ; a dip into the
volume at random, and so on for a page or two ; and
now and then a smile ; and presently a gape ; and
the book drops out of your hand ; and so, bon soir,
and pleasant dreams to you. I have frequently seen
men at clubs asleep over their humble servant's works,
and am always pleased. Even at a lecture I don't
mind, if ihey don't snore. Only the other day, when
my friend A. said, " You've left off that Roundabout
business, I see; very glad you have," I joined in the
general roar of laughter at the table. I don't care a
fig whether Archilochus likes the papers or no. You
don't like partridge, Archilochus, or porridge, or what
not? Try some other dish. I am not going to force
mine down your throat, or quarrel with you if you
refuse it. Once in America a clever and candid wom-
an said to me, at the close of a dinner, during which I
had been sitting beside her, " Mr. Roundabout, I was
told I should not like you; and I don't." "Well,
ma'am," says I, in a tone of the most unfeigned sim-
plicity, " I don't care." And we became good friends
immediately, and esteemed each other ever after.

So, my dear Archilochus, if you come upon this
paper, and say " Fudge !" and pass on to another, I,
for one, shall not be in the least mortified. If you
say, "What does he mean by calling this paper On

22 ROUND ABOUT PAPERS.

Two Children in Black, when there's nothing about
people in black at all, unless the ladies he met (and
evidently bored) at dinner were black women ? What
is all this egotistical pother? A plague on his I's!"
My dear fellow, if you read Montaigne's Essays, you
must own that he might call almost any one by the
name of any other, and that an essay on the Moon or
an essay on Green Cheese would be as appropriate a
title as one of his on Coaches, on the Art of Discours-
ing, or Experience, or what you will. Besides, if I
have a subject (and I have), I claim to approach it in
a roundabout manner.

You remember Balzac's tale of the Peau de Chagrin,
and how every time the possessor used it for the ac-
complishment of some wish the fairy Peau shrank a
little, and the owner's life correspondingly shortened?
I have such a desire to be well with my public that I
am actually giving up my favorite story. I am kill-
ing my goose, I know I am. I can't tell my story
of the children in black after this — after printing it,
and sending it through the country. When they are
gone to the printer's these little things become public
property. I take their hands. I bless them. I say,
" Good-by, my little dears." I am quite sorry to part
with them ; but the fact is, I have told all my friends
about them already, and don't dare to take them about
with me any more.

Now every word is true of this little anecdote, and
I submit that there lies in it a most curious and ex-
citing little mystery. I am like a man who gives you
the last bottle of his '25 claret. It is the pride of his
cellar ; he knows it, and he has a right to praise it.

ON TWO CHILDREN IN BLACK. 23

He takes up the bottle, fashioned so slenderly — takes
it up tenderly, cants it with care, places it before his
friends, declares how good it is, with honest pride, and
wishes he had a hundred dozen bottles more of the
same wine in his cellar. Si quid novisti, etc., I shall be
very glad to hear from you. I protest and vow I am
giving you the best I have.

Well, who those little boys in black were, I shall
never probably know to my dying day. They were
very pretty little men, with pale faces, and large, mel-
ancholy eyes ; and they had beautiful little hands,
and little boots, and the finest little shirts, and black
paletots lined with the richest silk ; and they had pic-
ture-books in several languages, English, and French,
and German, I remember. Two more aristocratic-
looking little men I never set eyes on. They were
traveling with a very handsome, pale lady in mourn-
ing, and a maid-servant dressed in black too ; and on
the lady's face there was the deepest grief. The little
boys clambered and played about the carriage, and
she sat watching. It was a railway-carriage from
Frankfort to Heidelberg.

I saw at once that she was the mother of those chil-
dren, and going to part from them. Perhaps I have
tried parting with my own, and not found the busi-
ness very pleasant. Perhaps I recollect driving down
(with a certain trunk and carpet-bag on the box) with
my own mother to the end of the avenue, where we
waited — only a few minutes — until the whirring
wheels of that " Defiance" coach were heard rolling
toward us as certain as death. Twang goes the horn ;
up goes the trunk ; down come the steps. Bah ! I see

24 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

the autumn evening ; I hear the wheels now ; I smart
the cruel smart again ; and, boy or man, have never
been able to bear the sight of people parting from
their children.

I thought these little men might be going to school
for the first time in their lives ; and mamma might be
taking them to the doctor, and would leave them with
many fond charges, and little wistful secrets of love,
bidding the elder to protect his younger brother, and
the younger to be gentle, and to remember to pray to
Grod always for his mother, who would pray for her
boy too. Oar party made friends with these young
ones during the little journey ; but the poor lady was
too sad to talk except to the boys now and again, and
sat in her corner pale, and silently looking at them.

The next day we saw the lady and her maid driv-
ing in the direction of the railway station without the
boys. The parting had taken place, then. That night
they would sleep among strangers. The little beds at
home were vacant, and poor mother might go and
look at them. Well, tears flow, and friends part, and
mothers pray every night all over the world. I dare
say we went to see Heidelberg Castle, and admired
the vast shattered walls, and quaint gables ; and the
Keckar running its bright course through that charm-
ing scene of peace and beauty ; and ate our dinner,
and drank our wine with relish. The poor mother
would eat but little Abendessen that night ; and as for
the children — that first night at school — hard bed,
hard words, strange boys bullying, and laughing, and
jarring you with their hateful merriment — as for the
first night at a strange school, we most of us remem-

ON TWO CHILDREN IN BLACK. 25

ber what that is. And the first is not the worst, my
boys, there's the rub. But each man has his share of
troubles, and I suppose you must have yours.

From Heidelberg we went to Baden-Baden, and, I
dare say, saw Madame de Schlangenbad and Madame
de la Cruchecassee, and Count Punter, and honest Cap-
tain Blackball. And whom should we see in the
evening but our two little boys, walking on each side
of a fierce, yellow-faced, bearded man ! We wanted
to renew our acquaintance with them, and they were
coming forward quite pleased to greet us. But the
father pulled back one of the little men by his paletot,
gave a grim scowl, and walked away. I can see the
children now looking rather frightened away from us
and up into the father's face, or the cruel uncle's —
which was he? I think he was the father. So this
was the end of them. Not school as I at first had im-
agined. The mother was gone, who had given them
the heaps of pretty books, and the pretty studs in the
shirts, and the pretty silken clothes, and the tender —
tender cares ; and they were handed to this scowling
practitioner of Trente et Quarante. Ah ! this is worse
than school. Poor little men ! poor mother sitting by
the vacant little beds ! We saw the children once or
twice after, always in Scowler's company, but we did
not dare to give each other any marks of recognition.

From Baden we went to Basel, and thence to Lu-
cerne, and so over the St. Gothard into Italy. From
Milan we went to Venice ; and now comes the singu-
lar part of my story. In Venice there is a little court
of which I forget the name, but in it is an apothecary's
shop, whither I went to buy some remedy for the bites

B

26 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

of certain animals which abound in Venice. Crawling
animals, skipping animals, and humming, flying ani-
mals ; all three will have at you at once ; and one
night nearly drove me into a strait-waistcoat. Well,
as I was coming out of the apothecary's with the bot-
tle of spirits of hartshorn in my hand (it really does
do the bites a great deal of good), whom should I light
upon but one of my little Heidelberg-Baden boys !

I have said how handsomely they were dressed as
long as they were with their mother. When I saw
the boy at Yenice, who perfectly recognized me, his
only garb was a wretched yellow cotton gown. His
little feet, on which I had admired the little shiny
boots, were without shoe or stocking. He looked at me,
ran to an old hag of a woman who seized his hand,
and with her he disappeared down one of the throng-
ed lanes of the city.

From Yenice we went to Trieste (the Yienna rail-
way at that time was only opened as far as Lay bach,
and the magnificent Semmering Pass was not quite
completed). At a station between Lay bach and Graetz,
one of my companions alighted for refreshment, and
came back to the carriage saying,

" There's that horrible man from Baden, with the
two little boys."

Of course, we had talked about the appearance of
the little boy at Yenice, and his strange altered garb.
My companion said they were pale, wretched-looking,
and dressed quite shabbily.

I got out at several stations, and looked at all the
carriages. I could not see my little men. From that
day to this I have never set eyes on them. That is

ON TWO CHILDREN IN BLACK. 27

Jill my story. Who were they? What could they
be ? How can you explain that mystery of the moth-
er giving them up ; of the remarkable splendor and
elegance of their appearance while under her care ; of
their barefooted squalor in Venice a month afterward ;
of their shabby habiliments at Laybach? Had the
father gambled away his money and sold their clothes?
How came they to have passed out of the hands of a
refined lady (as she evidently was, with whom I first
saw them) into the charge of quite a common woman
like her with whom I saw one of the boys at Venice ?
Here is but one chapter of the story. Can any man
write the next, or that preceding the strange one on
which I happened to light ? Who knows : the mys-
tery may have some quite simple solution. I saw two
children, attired like little princes, taken from their
mother and consigned to other care ; and a fortnight
afterward, one of them barefooted and like a beggar.
Who will read this riddle of The Two Children in
Black?

28

ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

ON RIBBONS.

The uncle of the present Sir Louis N. Bonaparte,
K.Gr., etc., inaugurated his reign as Emperor over the
neighboring nation by establishing an Order, to which
all citizens of his country, military, naval, and civil —
all men most distinguished in science, letters, arts, and

ON KIBBONS. 29

commerce — were admitted. The emblem of the Or-
der was but a piece of ribbon, more or less long or
broad, with a toy at the end of it. The Bourbons had
toys and ribbons of their own, blue, black, and all-col-
ored ; and on their return to dominion such good old
Tories would naturally have preferred to restore their
good old Orders of Saint Louis, Saint Esprit, and Saint
Michel, but France had taken the ribbon of the Legion
of Honor so to her heart that no Bourbon sovereign
dared to pluck it thence.

In England, until very late days, we have been ac-
customed rather to pooh-pooh national Orders, to vote
ribbons and crosses, tinsel gewgaws, foolish foreign or-
naments, and so forth. It is known how the Great
Duke (the breast of whose own coat was plastered
with some half hundred decorations) was averse to the
wearing of ribbons, medals, clasps, and the like, by his
army. We have all of us read how uncommonly dis-
tinguished Lord Castlereagh looked at Vienna, where
he was the only gentleman present without any deco-
ration whatever. And the Great Duke's theory was,
that clasps and ribbons, stars and garters, were good
and proper ornaments for himself, for the chief officers
of his distinguished army, and for gentlemen of high
birth, who might naturally claim to wear a band of
garter blue across their waistcoats ; but that for com-
mon people your plain coat, without stars and ribbons,
was the most sensible wear.

And no doubt you and I are as happy, as free, as
comfortable ; we can walk and dine as well ; we can
keep the winter's cold out as well, without a star on
our coats, as without a feather in our hats. How often

30 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

we have laughed at the absurd mania of the Ameri-
cans for dubbing their senators, members of Congress,
and States' representatives, Honorable ! We have a
right to call our privy councilors Right Honorable,
our lords' sons Honorable, and so forth ; but for a na-
tion as numerous, well educated, strong, rich, civilized,
free as our own, to dare to give its distinguished citi-
zens titles of honor — monstrous assumption of low-
bred arrogance and parverme vanity ! Our titles are
respectable, but theirs absurd. Mr. Jones, of London,
a chancellor's son, and a tailor's grandson, is justly
honorable, and entitled to be Lord Jones at his noble
father's decease; but Mr. Brown, the senator from
New York, is a silly upstart for tacking Honorable to
his name, and our sturdy British good sense laughs at
him. Who has not laughed (I have myself) at Hon-
orable Nahum Dodge, Honorable Zeno Scudder, Hon-
orable Hiram Boake, and the rest? A score of such
queer names and titles I have smiled at in America.
And, mutato nomine t I meet a born idiot, who is a
peer and born legislator. This driveling noodle and
his descendants through life are your natural superi-
ors and mine — your and my children's superiors. I
read of an alderman kneeling and knighted at court ;
I see a gold-stick waddling backward before majest}^
in a procession, and if we laugh, don't you suppose
the Americans laugh too ?

Yes, stars, garters, orders, knighthoods, and the like,
are folly. Yes, Bobus, citizen and soap-boiler, is a
good man, and no one laughs at him or good Mrs.
Bobus, as they have their dinner at one o'clock. But
who will not jeer at Sir Thomas on a melting day,

ON RIBBONS. 31

and Lady Bobus, at Margate, eating shrimps in a don-
key-chaise ? Yes, knighthood is absurd ; and chival-
ry an idiotic superstition ; and Sir Walter Manny was
a zany ; and Nelson, with his flaming stars and cor-
dons, splendent upon a day of battle, was a madman ;
and Murat, with his crosses and orders, at the head of
his squadrons charging victorious, was only a crazy
mountebank, who had been a tavern- waiter, and was
puffed up with absurd vanity about his dress and legs.
And the men of the French line at Fontenoy, who
told Messieurs de la Garde to fire first, were smirking
French dancing-masters ; and the Black Prince, wait-
ing upon his royal prisoner, was acting an inane mas-
querade ; and Chivalry is naught ; and Honor is hum-
bug; and Gentlemanhood is an extinct folly; and
Ambition is madness; and desire of distinction is
criminal vanity ; and glory is bosh ; and fair fame is
idleness ; and nothing is true but two and two ; and
the color of all the world is drab ; and all men are
equal ; and one man is as tall as another ; and one
man is as good as another — and a great dale betther,
as the Irish philosopher said.

Is this so ? Titles and badges of honor are vanity ;
and in the American Kevolution you have his Excel-
lency General Washington sending back, and with
proper spirit sending back, a letter in which he is not
addressed as Excellency and General. Titles are abol-
ished ; and the American republic swarms with men
claiming and bearing them. You have the French
soldier cheered and happy in his dying agony, and
kissing with frantic joy the chiefs hand who lays the
little cross on the bleeding bosom. At home you

32 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

have the dukes and earls jobbing and intriguing for
the Garter; the military knights grumbling at the
civil knights of the Bath ; the little ribbon eager for
the collar; the soldiers and seamen from India and
the Crimea marching in procession before the queen,
and receiving from her hands the cross bearing her
royal name. And, remember, there are not only the
cross wearers, but all the fathers and friends ; all the
women who have prayed for their absent heroes;
Harry's wife, and Tom's mother, and Jack's daughter,
and Frank's sweet-heart, each of whom wears in her
heart of hearts afterward the badge which son, father,
lover, has won by his merit ; each of whom is made
happy and proud, and is bound to the country by that
little bit of ribbon.

I have heard, in a lecture about George the Third,
that, at his accession, the king had a mind to establish
an order for literary men. It was to have been called
the Order of Minerva — I suppose with an Owl for a
badge. The knights were to have worn a star of six-
teen points, and a yellow ribbon ; and good old Sam-
uel Johnson was talked of as President, or Grand
Cross, or Grand Owl, of the society. ISTow about such
an order as this there certainly may be doubts. Con-
sider the claimants, the difficulty of settling their
claims, the rows and squabbles among the candidates,
and the subsequent decision of posterity ! Dr. Beat-
tie would have ranked as first poet, and twenty years
after the sublime Mr. Hayley would, no doubt, have
claimed the Grand Cross. Mr. Gibbon would not
have been eligible on account of his dangerous free-
thinking opinions ; and her sex, as well as her re-

ON RIBBONS. 33

publican sentiments, might have interfered with the
knighthood of the immortal Mrs. Catharine Macaulay.
How Goldsmith would have paraded the ribbon at
Madame Cornelys's, or the Academy dinner! How
Peter Pindar would have railed at it! Fifty years
later, the noble Scott would have worn the Grand
Cross and deserved it; but Gifford would have had
it; and Byron, and Shelley, and Hazlitt, and Hunt
would have been without it ; and had Keats been pro-
posed as officer, how the Tory prints would have
yelled with rage and scorn ! Had the star of Minerva
lasted to our present time — but I pause, not because
the idea is dazzling, but too awful. Fancy the claim-
ants, and the row about their precedence ! Which
philosopher shall have the grand cordon ? which the
collar ? which the little scrap no bigger than a butter-
cup ? Of the historians — A, say — and C, and F, and
G, and S, and T — which shall be Companion and
which Grand Owl? Of the poets, who wears, or
claims, the largest and brightest star ? Of the novel-
ists, there is A, and B, and C D ; and E (star of first
magnitude, newly discovered), and F (a magazine of
wit), and fair G, and H, and I, and brave old J, and
charming K, and L, and M, and N, and O (fair twink-
lers), and I am puzzled between three P's — Peacock,
Miss Pardoe, and Paul Pry — and Queechy, and E, and
S, and T, mere et fils, and very likely U, oh gentle
reader, for who has not written his novel nowadays ?
who has not a claim to the star and straw-colored rib-
bon? and who shall have the biggest and largest?
Fancy the struggle ! Fancy the squabble ! Fancy
the distribution of prizes !

B2

34 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

Who shall decide on them ? Shall it be the sover-
eign ? shall- it be the minister for the time being ? and
has Lord Palmerston made a deep study of novels ?
In this matter the late ministry, to be sure, was better
qualified ; but even then, grumblers who had not got
their canary cordons would have hinted at professional
jealousies entering the cabinet; and, the ribbons be-
ing awarded, Jack would have scowled at his because
Dick had a broader one ; Ned been indignant because
Bob's was as large ; Tom would have thrust his into
the drawer, and scorned to wear it at all. No, no ; the
so-called literary world was well rid of Minerva and
her yellow ribbon. The great poets would have been
indifferent, the little poets jealous, the funny men fu-
rious, the philosophers satirical, the historians super-
cilious, and, finally, the jobs without end. Say, inge-
nuity and cleverness are to be rewarded by state to-
kens and prizes — and take for granted the Order of
Minerva is established — who shall have it ? A great
philosopher? no doubt, we cordially salute him G. C. M.
A great historian ? G. C. M. of course. A great en-
gineer ? G. C. M. A great poet ? received with ac-
clamation G. C. M. A great painter ? oh ! certainly,
G. C. M. If a great painter, why not a great novelist?
Well, pass, great novelist, G. C. M. But if a poetic,
a pictorial, a story -telling, or music-composing artist,
why not a singing artist ? Why not a basso-profondo ?
Why not a primo tenore? And if a singer, why
should not a ballet-dancer come bounding on the stage
with his cordon, and cut capers to the music of a row
of decorated fiddlers? A chemist puts in his claim
for having invented a new color ; an apothecary for a

ON KIBBONS. 35

new pill ; the cook for a new sauce ; the tailor for a
new cut of trowsers. We have brought the star of
Minerva down from the breast to the pantaloons.
Stars and garters ! can we go any farther ; or shall we
give the shoemaker the yellow ribbon of the order for
his shoe-tie ?

When I began this present Eoundabout excursion,
I think I had not quite made up my mind whether we
would have an Order of all the Talents or not ; per-
haps I rather had a hankering for a rich ribbon and
gorgeous star, in which my family might like to see
me at parties in my best waistcoat. But then the door
opens, and there come in, and by the same right too,
Sir Alexis Soyer ! Sir Alessandro Tamburini ! Sir
Agostino Velluti! Sir Antonio Paganini (violinist) 1
Sir Sandy McGufTog (piper to the most noble the Mar-
quis of Farintosh) ! Sir Alcide Flicflac (premier dan-
seur of H. M. Theatre) ! Sir Harley Quin and Sir Jo-
seph Grimaldi (from Covent Garden) ! They have all
the yellow ribbon. They are all honorable, and clev-
er, and distinguished artists. Let us elbow through
the rooms, make a bow to the lady of the house, give
a nod to Sir George Thrum, who is leading the or-
chestra, and go and get some Champagne and Seltzer-
water from Sir Richard Gunter, who is presiding at
the buffet. A national decoration might be well and
good ; a token awarded by the country to all its bene-
merentibus; but most gentlemen with Minerva stars
would, I think, be inclined to wear very wide breast-
collars to their coats. Suppose yourself, brother pen-
man, decorated with this ribbon, and looking in the
glass, would you not laugh? Would not wife and
daughters laugh at that canary -colored emblem ?

36 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

But suppose a man, old or young, of figure ever so
stout, thin, stumpy, homely, indulging in looking-glass
reflections with that hideous ribbon and cross called
V. C. on his coat, would he not be proud? and his
family, would not they be prouder ? For your noble-
man there is the famous old blue garter and star, and
welcome. If I were a marquis — if I had thirty — forty
thousand a year (settle the sum, my dear Alnaschar,
according to your liking), I should consider myself
entitled to my seat in Parliament and to my Garter.
The Garter belongs to the Ornamental Classes. Have
you seen the new magnificent Pavo Spicifer at the
Zoological Gardens, and do you grudge him his jew-
eled coronet and the azure splendor of his waistcoat ?
I like my lord mayor to have a gilt coach ; my mag-
nificent monarch to be surrounded by magnificent no-
bles; I hurrah respectfully when they pass in pro-
cession. It is good for Mr. Briefless (50 Pump Court,
fourth floor) that there should be a lord chancellor,
with a gold robe and fifteen thousand a year. It is
good for a poor curate that there should be splendid
bishops at Fulham and Lambeth : their lordships were
poor curates once, and have won, so to speak, their
ribbon. Is a man who puts into a lottery to be sulky
because he does not win the twenty thousand pounds
prize ? Am I to fall into a rage, and bully my fam-
ily when I come home, after going to see Chatsworth
or Windsor, because we have only two little drawing-
rooms ? Welcome to your Garter, my lord, and shame
upon him qui mdl y pense I

So I arrive in my roundabout way near the point to-
ward which I have been trotting ever since we set out.

ON RIBBONS. 37

In a voyage to America some nine years since, on
the seventh, or eighth day out from Liverpool, Captain

L came to dinner at eight bells as usual, talked a

little to the persons right and left of him, and helped
the soup with his accustomed politeness. Then he
went on deck, and was back in a minute, and operated
on the fish, looking rather grave the while.

Then he went on deck again, and this time was ab-
sent, it may be, three or five minutes, during which
the fish disappeared, and the entrees arrived, and the
roast beef. Say ten minutes passed — I can't tell after
nine years.

Then L came down with a pleased and happy

countenance this time, and began carving the sirloin :
"We have seen the light," he said. " Madam, may I
help you to a little gravy, or a little horseradish ?" or
what-not ?

I forget the name of the light ; nor does it matter.
It was a point of Newfoundland for which he was on
the look-out, and so well did the Canada know where
she was, that, between soup and beef, the captain had
sighted the headland by which his course was lying.

And so through storm and darkness, through fog
and midnight, the ship had pursued her steady way
over the pathless ocean and roaring seas, so surely
that the officers who sailed her knew her place with-
in a minute or two, and guided us with a wonderful
providence safe on our way. Since the noble Cunard
Company has run its ships, but one accident, and that
through the error of a pilot, has happened on the line.

By this little incident (hourly of course repeated,
and trivial to all sea-going people) I own I was im-

38 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

mensely moved, and never can think of it but with a
heart full of thanks and awe. We trust our lives to
these seamen, and how nobly they fulfill their trust !
They are, under heaven, as a providence for us.
While we sleep, their untiring watchfulness keeps
guard over us. All night through that bell sounds
at its season, and tells how our sentinels defend us.
It rang when the Amazon was on fire, and chimed its
heroic signal of duty, and courage, and honor. Think
of the dangers these seamen undergo for us; the hour-
ly peril and watch ; the familiar storm ; the dreadful
iceberg; the long winter nights when the decks are
as glass, and the sailor has to climb through icicles to
bend the stiff sail on the yard. Think of their cour-
age and their kindnesses in cold, in tempest, in hun-
ger, in wreck ! u The women and children to the
boats," says the captain of the Birkenhead, and, with
the troops formed on the deck, and the crew obedient
to the word of glorious command, the immortal ship
goes down. Eead the story of the Sarah Sands :

SARAH SANDS.

The screw steam-ship Sarah Sands, 1330 registered tons, was char-
tered by the East India Company in the autumn of 1858 for the con-
veyance of troops to India. She was commanded by John Squire
Castle. She took out a part of the 54th Regiment, upward of 350
persons, besides the wives and children of some of the men, and the
families of some of the officers. All went well till the 11th of No-
vember, when the ship had reached lat. 14 S., long. 56 E., upward of
400 miles from the Mauritius.

Between three and four P.M. on that day a very strong smell of
fire was perceived arising from the after-deck, and upon going below
into the hold, Captain Castle found it to be on fire, and immense vol-
umes of smoke arising from it. Endeavors were made to reach the

ON KIBBONS. 39

seat of the fire, but in vain ; the smoke and heat were too much for
the men. There was, however, no confusion. Every order was obey-
ed with the same coolness and courage with which it was given. The
engine was immediately stopped. All sail was taken in, and the ship
brought to the wind, so as to drive the smoke and fire, which was in
the after-part of the ship, astern. Others were, at the same time, get-
ting fire-hoses fitted and passed to the scene of the fire. The fire,
however, continued to increase, and attention was directed to the am-
munition contained in the powder magazines, which were situated
one on each side the ship immediately above the fire. The starboard
magazine was soon cleared. But by this time the whole of the after-
part of the ship was so much enveloped in smoke that it was scarcely
possible to stand, and great fears were entertained on account of the
port magazine. Volunteers were called for, and came immediately,
and, under the guidance of Lieutenant Hughes, attempted to clear
the port magazine, which they succeeded in doing, with the excep-
tion, as was supposed, of one or two barrels. It was most dangerous
work. The men became overpowered with the smoke and heat, and
fell; and several, while thus engaged, were dragged up by ropes,
senseless.

The flames soon burst up through the deck, and, running rapidly
along the various cabins, set the greater part on fire.

In the mean time Captain Castle took steps for lowering the boats.
There was a heavy gale at the time, but they were launched without
the least accident. The soldiers were mustered on deck ; there was
no rush to the boats ; and the men obeyed the word of command as
if on parade. The men were informed that Captain Castle did not
despair of saving the ship, but that they must be prepared to leave
her if necessary. The women and children were lowered into the
port life-boat, under the charge of Mr. Very, third officer, who had
orders to keep clear of the ship until recalled.

Captain Castle then commenced constructing rafts of spare spars.
In a short time three were put together, which would have been ca-
pable of saving a great number of those on board. Two were launched
overboard, and safely moored alongside, and then a third was left
across the deck forward, ready to be launched.

In the mean time the fire had made great progress. The whole
of the cabins were one body of fire, and at about 8 30 P. M. flames
burst through the upper deck, and shortly after the mizzen rigging
caught fire. Fears were entertained of the ship paying off, in which

40 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

case the flames would have been swept forward by the wind ; but for-
tunately the after-braces were burnt through, and the main yard
swung round, which kept the ship's head to wind. About nine P.M.
a fearful explosion took place in the port magazine, arising, no doubt,
from the one or two barrels of powder which it had been impossible
to remove. By this time the ship was one body of flame, from the
stern to the main rigging, and thinking it scarcely possible to save
her, Captain Castle called Major Brett (then in command of the
troops, for the colonel was in one of the boats) forward, and, telling
him that he feared the ship was lost, requested him to endeavor to
keep order among the troops till the last, but, at the same time, to use
every exertion to check the fire. Providentially, the iron bulkhead
in the after-part of the ship withstood the action of the flames, and
here all efforts were concentrated to keep it cool.

"No person," says the captain, " can describe the manner in which
the men worked to keep the fire back ; one party were below, keeping
the bulkhead cool, and when several were dragged up senseless, fresh
volunteers took their places, who were, however, soon in the same
state. At about 10 P.M. the main topsail yard took fire. Mr. Welch,
one quarter-master, and four or five soldiers, went aloft with wet
blankets, and succeeded in extinguishing it, but not until the yard
and mast were nearly burnt through. The work of fighting the fire
below continued for hours, and about midnight it appeared that some
impression was made ; and after that the men drove it back, inch by
inch, until daylight, when they had completely got it under. The
ship was now in a frightful plight. The after-part was literally burnt
out — merely the shell remaining — the port quarter blown out by the
explosion ; fifteen feet of water in the hold."

The gale still prevailed, and the ship was rolling and pitching in a
heavy sea, and taking in large quantities of water abaft ; the tanks,
too, were rolling from side to side in the hold.

As soon as the smoke was partially cleared away, Captain Castle
got spare sails and blankets aft to stop the leak, passing two hawsers
round the stern, and setting them up. The troops were employed
baling and pumping. This continued during the whole morning.

In the course of the day the ladies joined the ship. The boats
were ordered alongside, but they found the sea too heavy to remain
there. The gig had been abandoned during the night, and the crew,
under Mr. Wood, fourth officer, had got into another of the boats.
The troops were employed the remainder of the day baling and

6*1

09 PS

* 3

ON RIBBONS. 43

pumping, and the crew securing the stern. All hands were employ-
ed during the following night baling and pumping, the boats being
moored alongside, where they received some damage. At daylight
on the 13th the crew were employed hoisting the boats, the troops
were working manfully baling and pumping. Latitude at noon, 13
deg. 12 min. south. At five P.M. the foresail and foretopsail were
set, the rafts were cut away, and the ship bore for the Mauritius. On
Thursday, the 19th, she sighted the island of Rodrigues, and arrived
at Mauritius on Mondav, the 23d.

The Nile and Trafalgar are not more glorious to our
country, are not greater victories than these won by
our merchant seamen. And if you look in the cap-
tains' reports of any maritime register, you will see
similar acts recorded every day. I have such a vol-
ume for last year now lying before me. In the sec-
ond number, as I open it at hazard, Captain Eoberts,
master of the ship Empire, from Shields to London,
reports how, on the 14th ult. (the 14th of December,
1859), he, " being off Whitby, discovered the ship to
be on fire between the main hold and boilers : got the
hose from the engine laid on, and succeeded in sub-
duing the fire ; bnt only apparently ; for at seven the
next morning, the Dudgeon bearing S.S.E. seven miles'
distance, the fire again broke out, causing the ship to
be enveloped in flames on both sides of midships ; got
the hose again into play, and all hands to work with
buckets to combat with the fire. Did not succeed in
stopping it till four P.M., to effect which were obliged
to cut away the deck and top sides, and throw over-
board part of the cargo. The vessel was very much
damaged and leaky : determined to make for the
Humber. Ship was run on shore, on the mud, near
Grimsby Harbor, with five feet of water in her hold.

44 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

The donkey engine broke down. The water in-
creased so fast as to put out the furnace fires and ren-
der the ship almost unmanageable. On the tide flow-
ing, a tug towed the ship off the mud, and got her into
Grimsby to repair."

On the 2d of November, Captain Strickland, of the
Purchase brigantine, from Liverpool to Yarmouth, U.
S., " encountered heavy gales from W. N. W. to W. S.
W., in lat. 43° N., long 34° W., in which we lost jib,
foretopmast, staysail, topsail, and carried away the
foretopmast stays, bobstays and bowsprit, headsails,
cut-water and stern, also started the wood ends, which
caused the vessel to leak. Put her before the wind
and sea, and hove about twenty-five tons of cargo
overboard to lighten the ship forward. Slung myself
in a bowline, and by means of thrusting 2^-inch rope
in the opening, contrived to stop a great portion of
the leak.

"December 16th. The crew, continuing night and
day at the pumps, could not keep the ship free;
deemed it prudent, for the benefit of those concerned,
to bear up for the nearest port. On arriving in lat.
48° 45/ R, long. 23° W., observed a vessel with a sig-
nal of distress flying. Made toward her, when she
proved to be the bark Carleton, water-logged. The
captain and crew asked to be taken off. Hove to,
and received them on board, consisting of thirteen
men ; and their ship was abandoned. We then pro-
ceeded on our course, the crew of the abandoned ves-
sel assisting all they could to keep my ship afloat.
We arrived at Cork Harbor on the 27th ult."

Captain Coulson, master of the brig Othello, reports

ON RIBBONS. 45

that his brig foundered off Portland December 27 ;
encountering a strong gale, and shipping two heavy
seas in succession, which hove the ship on her beam-
ends. " Observing no chance of saving the ship, took
to the long-boat, and within ten minutes of leaving
her saw the brig founder. "We were picked up the
same morning by the French ship Commerce de Paris,
Captain Tombarel."

Here, in a single column of a newspaper, what
strange, touching pictures do we find of seamen's
dangers, vicissitudes, gallantry, generosity! The ship
on fire — the captain in the gale slinging himself in a
bowline to stop the leak — the Frenchman in the hour
of danger coming to his British comrade's rescue —
the brigantine, almost a wreck, working up to the
bark with the signal of distress flying, and taking off
her crew of thirteen men : " We then proceeded on
our course, the crew of the abandoned vessel assisting all
they could to keep my ship afloat." What noble, sim-
ple words! What courage, devotedness, brotherly
love! Do they not cause the heart to beat and the
eyes to fill ?

This is what seamen do daily, and for one another.
One lights occasionally upon different stories. It hap-
pened, not very long since, that the passengers by one
of the great ocean steamers were wrecked, and, after
undergoing the most severe hardships, were left, des-
titute and helpless, at a miserable coaling port. Among
them were old men, ladies, and children. When the
next steamer arrived, the passengers by that steamer
took alarm at the haggard and miserable appearance
of their unfortunate predecessors, and actually remon-

46 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

strated with their own captain, urging him not to take the
poor creatures on board. There was every excuse, of
course. The last-arrived steamer was already dan-
gerously full ; the cabins were crowded ; there were
sick and delicate people on board — sick and delicate
people who had paid a large price to the company for
room, food, comfort, already not too sufficient. If
fourteen of us are in an omnibus, will we see three or
four women outside and say, " Come in, because this
is the last 'bus, and it rains?" Of course not; but
think of that remonstrance, and of that Samaritan
master of the Purchase brigantine !

In the winter of '53 I went from Marseilles to Civita
Vecchia in one of the magnificent P. and 0. ships, the
Valetta, the master of which subsequently did distin-
guished service in the Crimea. This was his first
Mediterranean voyage, and he sailed his ship by the
charts alone, going into each port as surely as any
pilot. I remember walking the deck at night with
this most skillful, gallant, well-bred, and well-educated
gentleman, and the glow of eager enthusiasm with
which he assented when I asked him whether he did
not think a ribbon or order would be welcome or
useful in his service.

Why is there not an Order of Britannia for
British seamen? In the Merchant and the Eoyal
Navy alike, occur almost daily instances and occa-
sions for the display of science, skill, bravery, forti-
tude in trying circumstances, resource in danger. In
the First Number of the Cornhill Magazine a friend
contributed a most touching story of the M'Clintock
expedition, in the dangers and dreadful glories of

ON RIBBONS. 47

which he shared ; and the writer was a merchant cap-
tain. How many more are there (and, for the honor
of England, may there be many like him !) — gallant,
accomplished, high-spirited, enterprising masters of
their noble profession ! Can our fountain of Honor
not be brought to such men ? It plays upon captains
and colonels in seemly profusion. It pours forth not
illiberal rewards upon doctors and judges. It sprink-
les mayors and aldermen. It bedews a painter now
and again. It has spirted a baronetcy upon two, and
bestowed a coronet upon one noble man of letters.
Diplomatists take their Bath in it as of right ; and it
flings out a profusion of glittering stars upon the no-
bility of the three kingdoms. Can not Britannia find
a ribbon for her sailors? The Navy, royal or mer-
cantile, is a Service, The command of a ship, or the
conduct of her, implies danger, honor, science, skill,
subordination, good faith. It may be a victory, such
as that of the Sarah Sands ; it may be discovery, such
as that of the Fox ; it may be heroic disaster, such as
that of the Birkenhead; and in such events merchant
seamen, as well as royal seamen, take their share.

Why is there not, then, an Order of Britannia?
One day a young officer of the Euryalus may win it ;
and, having just read the memoirs of Lord Dun-
donald, I know who ought to have the first Grand
Cross.

48

ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

ON SOME LATE GREAT VICTORIES,

On the 18th day of April last I went to see a friend
in a neighboring Crescent, and on the steps of the
next house beheld a group something like that here
depicted. A news-boy had stopped in his walk, and
was reading aloud the journal which it was his duty

ON SOME LATE GREAT VICTORIES. 49

to deliver ; a pretty orange-girl, with a heap of blaz-
ing fruit, rendered more brilliant by one of those great
blue papers in which oranges are now artfully wrapped,
leant over the railing and listened ; and opposite the
nympham discentem there was a capering and acute-
eared young satirist of a crossing-sweeper, who had
left his neighboring professional avocation and chance
of profit in order to listen to the tale of the little news-
boy.

That intelligent reader, with his hand following the
line as he read it out to his audience, was saying,
"And — now — Tom — coming up smiling — after his
fall — dee — delivered a rattling clinker upon the Beni-
cia Boy's — potato-trap — but was met by a — punisher
on the nose — which," etc., etc. ; or words to that ef-
fect. Betty at 52 let me in while the boy was read-
ing his lecture ; and, having been some twenty min-
utes or so in the house and paid my visit, I took
leave.

The little lecturer was still at work on the 51 door-
step, and his audience had scarcely changed their posi-
tion. Having read every word of the battle myself
in the morning, I did not stay to listen farther ; but if
the gentleman who expected his paper at the usual
hour that day experienced delay and a little disap-
pointment, I shall not be surprised.

I am not going to expatiate on the battle. I have
read in the correspondent's letter of a Northern news-
paper that in the midst of the company assembled the
reader's humble servant was. present, and in a very
polite society, too, of " poets, clergymen, men of letters,
and members of both houses of Parliament." If so, 1

C

50 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

must have walked to the station in my sleep, paid
three guineas in a profound fit of mental abstraction,
and returned to bed unconscious, for I certainly woke
there about the time when history relates that the
fight was over. I do not know whose colors I wore
— the Benician's, or those of the Irish champion ; nor
remember where the fight took place, which, indeed,
no somnambulist is bound to recollect. Ought Mr.
Sayers to be honored for being brave, or punished for
being naughty ? By the shade of Brutus the elder, I
don't know.

In George II. 's time there was a turbulent navy
lieutenant (Handsome Smith he was called — his pic-
ture is at Greenwich now, in brown velvet, and gold
and scarlet ; his coat handsome, his waistcoat exceed-
ingly handsome, but his face by no means the beauty)
— there was, I say, a turbulent young lieutenant who
was broke on a complaint of the French embassador
for obliging a French ship of war to lower her topsails
to his ship at Spithead ; but, by the king's orders, Tom
was next day made Captain Smith. Well, if I were
absolute king, I would send Tom Sayers to the mill
for a month, and make him Sir Thomas on coming
out of Clerkenwell. You are a naughty boy, Tom ;
but then, you know, we ought to love our brethren,
though ever so naughty. We are moralists, and rep-
rimand you ; and you are hereby reprimanded accord-
ingly. But in case England should ever have need
of a few score thousand champions who laugh at dan-
ger ; who cope with giants ; who, stricken to the
ground, jump up and gayly rally, and fall, and rise
again, and strike, and die rather than yield — in case

ON SOME LATE GREAT VICTORIES. 51

the country should need such men, and you should
know them, be pleased to send lists of the misguided
persons to the principal police stations, where means
may some day be found to utilize their wretched pow-
ers, and give their deplorable energies a right direc-
tion. Suppose, Tom, that you and your friends are
pitted against an immense invader — suppose you are
bent on holding the ground, and dying there, if need
be — suppose it is life, freedom, honor, home, you are
fighting for, and there is a death-dealing sword or rifle
in your hand, with which you are going to resist some
tremendous enemy who challenges your champion-
ship on your native shore ? Then, Sir Thomas, resist
him to the death, and it is all right ; kill him, and
Heaven bless you. Drive him into the sea, and there
destroy, smash, and drown him ; and let us sing Lau-
damus. In these national cases, you see, we override
the indisputable first laws of morals. Loving your
neighbor is very well; but suppose your neighbor
comes over from Calais and Boulogne to rob you of
your laws, your liberties, your newspapers, your Par-
liament (all of which some dear neighbors of ours have
given up in the most self-denying manner) — suppose
any neighbor were to cross the water and propose this
kind of thing to us, should we not be justified in hum-
bly trying to pitch him into the water ? If it were
the King of Belgium himself we must do so. I mean
that fighting, of course, is wrong, but that there are
occasions when, etc. I suppose I mean that that one-
handed fight of Sayers's is one of the most spirit-stir-
ring little stories ever told ; and, with every love and
respect for Morality, my spirit says to her, "Do, for

52 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

goodness' sake, my dear madam, keep your true, and
pure, and womanly, and gentle remarks for another
day. Have the great kindness to stand a leeile aside,
and just let us see one or two more rounds between
the men. That little man with the one hand power-
less on his breast facing yonder giant for hours, and
felling him, too, every now and then ! It is the little
Java and the Constitution over again."

I think it is a most fortunate event for the brave
Heenan, who has acted and written since the battle
with a true warrior's courtesy, and with a great deal
of good logic too, that the battle was a drawn one.
The advantage was all on Mr. Sayers's side. Say a
young lad of sixteen insults me in the street, and I try
and thrash him, and do it. Well, I have thrashed a
young lad. You great, big tyrant, couldn't you hit
your own size? But say the lad thrashes me? In
either case I walk away discomfited, but in the latter
I am positively put to shame. Now, when the ropes
were cut from that death-grip, and Sir Thomas re-
leased, the gentleman of Benicia was confessedly blind
of one eye, and speedily afterward was blind of both.
Could Mr. Sayers have held out for three minutes, for
five minutes, for ten minutes more ? He says he could.
So we say we could have held out, and did, and had
beaten off the enemy at Waterloo, even if the Prus-
sians hadn't come up. The opinions differ pretty much
according to the nature of the opinants. I say the
Duke and Tom could have held out, that they meant
to hold out, that they did hold out, and that there has
been fistifying enough. That crowd which came in
and stopped the fight ought to be considered like one

ON SOME LATE GREAT VICTORIES. 53

of those divine clouds which the gods send in IIo-
mer:

11 Apollo shrouds
The godlike Trojan in a veil of clouds."

It is the best way of getting the godlike Trojan out
of the scrape, don't you see ? The nodus is cut ; Tom
is out of Chancery ; the Benicia Boy not a bit the
worse, nay, better than if he had beaten the little man.
He has not the humiliation of conquest. He is great-
er, and will be loved more hereafter by the gentle sex.
Suppose he had overcome the godlike Trojan? Sup-
pose he had tied Tom's corpse to his cab-wheels, and
driven to Farnham, smoking the pipe of triumph?
Faugh ! the great, hulking conqueror ! Why did you
not hold your hand from yonder hero ? Every body,
I say, was relieved by that opportune appearance of
the British gods, protectors of native valor, who inter-
fered, and " withdrew" their champion.

Now, suppose six-feet-two conqueror, and five-feet-
eight beaten ; would Sayers have been a whit the less
gallant and meritorious ? If Sancho had been allow-
ed really to reign in Barataria, I make no doubt that
with his good sense and kindness of heart he would
have devised some means of rewarding the brave van-
quished as well as the brave victors in the Baratarian
army, and that a champion who had fought a good
fight would have been a knight of King Don Sancho's
orders, whatever the upshot of the combat had been.
Suppose Wellington overwhelmed on the plateau of
Mont St. John; suppose Washington attacked and
beaten at Valley- Forge — and either supposition is quite
easy — and what becomes of the heroes ? They would

54 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

have been as brave, honest, heroic, wise; but their
glory, where would it have been? Should we have
had their portraits hanging in our chambers? have
been familiar with their histories ? have pondered over
their letters, common lives, and daily sayings ? There
is not only merit, but luck which goes to making a
hero out of a gentleman. Mind, please you, I am not
saying that the hero is, after all, not so very heroic,
and have not the least desire to grudge him his merit
because of his good fortune.

Have you any idea whither this Eoundabout Essay
on some late great victories is tending ? Do you sup-
pose that by those words I mean Trenton, Brandy-
wine, Salamanca, Yittoria, and so forth ? By a great
victory I can't mean that affair at Farnham, for it was
a drawn fight. Where then are the victories, pray,
and when are we coming to them ?

My good sir, you will perceive that in this Nicsean
discourse I have only as yet advanced as far as this —
that a hero, whether he wins or loses, is a hero ; and
that if a fellow will but be honest and courageous, and
do his best, we are for paying all honor to him. Fur-
thermore, it has been asserted that Fortune has a good
deal to do with the making of heroes ; and thus hint-
ed for the consolation of those who don't happen to
be engaged in any stupendous victories, that, had op-
portunity so served, they might have been heroes too.
If you are not, friend, it is not your fault, while I don't
wish to detract from any gentleman's reputation who is.
There. My worst enemy can't take objection to that.
The point might have been put more briefly perhaps,
but, if you please, we will not argue that question.

ON SOME LATE GREAT VICTORIES. 55

Well, then, the victories which I wish especially to
commemorate in this the last article of our first vol-
ume are the six great, complete, prodigious, and unde-
niable victories achieved by the corps which the edi-
tor of the Cornhill Magazine has the honor to com-
mand. When I seemed to speak disparagingly but
now of generals, it was that chief I had in my I (if
you will permit me the expression) ; I wished him not
to be elated by too much prosperity; I warned him
against assuming heroic imperatorial airs, and cocking
his laurels too jauntily over his ear. I was his con-
science, and stood on the splash-board of his triumph-
car, whispering "Hominem memento te" As we rolled
along the way, and passed the weather-cocks on the
-temples, I saluted the symbol of the goddess Fortune
with a reverent awe. " We have done our little en-
deavor," I said, bowing my head, " and mortals can do
no more. But we might have fought bravely, and not
won. We might have cast the coin, calling ' Head,'
and lo ! Tail might have come uppermost." Oh thou
Kuler of Victories ! thou awarder of Fame ! thou Giver
of Crowns (and shillings) — if thou hast smiled upon
us, shall we not be thankful? There is a saturnine
philosopher standing at the door of his book-shop,
who, I fancy, has a pooh-pooh expression as the tri-
umph passes. (I can't see quite clearly for the lau-
rels, which have fallen down over my nose.) One
hand is reining in the two white elephants that draw
the car ; I raise the other hand up to — to the laurels,
and pass on, waving him a graceful recognition. Up
the Hill of Ludgatc — around the Pauline Square — by
the side of Chepe — until it reaches our own Hill of

56 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

Corn — the procession passes. The Imperator is bow-
ing to the people ; the captains of the legions are rid-
ing round the car, their gallant minds struck by the
thought, " Have we not fought as well as yonder fel-
low swaggering in the chariot, and are we not as good
as he?" Granted, with all my heart, my dear lads.
When your consulship arrives, may you be as fortu-
nate. When these hands, now growing old, shall lay
down sword and truncheon, may you mount the car,
and ride to the temple of Jupiter. Be yours the lau-
rel then. Neque me myrtus dedecet, looking cozily down
from the arbor where I sit under the arched vine.

I fancy the Imperator standing on the steps of the
temple (erected by Titus) on the Mons Frumentarius,
and addressing the citizens : " Quirites !" he says, " in
our campaign of six months, we have been engaged
six times, and in each action have taken near upon a
hundred thousand prisoners. Go to ! What are other
magazines compared to our magazine ? (Sound, trump-
eter !) What banner is there like that of Cornhill ?
You, philosopher yonder" (he shirks under his man-
tle), "do you know what it is to have a hundred and
ten thousand readers ? A hundred thousand readers ?
a hundred thousand buyers /" (Cries of No ! Pooh !
Yes, upon my honor ! Oh, come ! and murmurs of
applause and derision) — " I say, more than a hundred
thousand purchasers, and I believe as much as a million
readers !" (Immense sensation.) " To these have we
said an unkind word? We have enemies; have we
hit them an unkind blow? Have we sought to pur-
sue party aims, to forward private jobs, to advance
selfish schemes? The only persons to whom witting-

ON SOME LATE GREAT VICTORIES. 57

ly we have given pain are some who have volunteered
for our corps, and of these volunteers we have had
thousands." (Murmurs and grumbles.) "What com-
mander, citizens, could place all these men — could
make officers of all these men?" (cries of No, no, and
laughter) — "could say, 'I accept this recruit, though
he is too short for our standard, because he is poor and
has a mother at home who wants bread V could enroll
this other, who is too weak to bear arms, because he
says, ' Look, sir, I shall be stronger anon.' The leader
of such an army as ours must select his men, not be-
cause they are good and virtuous, but because they
are strong and capable. To these our ranks are ever
open, and in addition to the warriors who surround
me" — (the generals look proudly conscious) — "I tell
you, citizens, that I am in treaty with other and most
tremendous champions, who will march by the side
of our veterans to the achievement of fresh victories.
Now, blow trumpets ! Bang, ye gongs ! and drum-
mers, drub the thundering skins ! Generals and chiefs,
we go to sacrifice to the gods."

Crowned with flowers, the captains enter the tem-
ple, the other Magazines walking modestly behind
them. The people hurrah, and, in some instances,
kneel and kiss the fringes of the robes of the warriors.
The philosopher puts up his shutters, and retires into
his shop, deeply moved. In ancient times, 'Pliny (apud
Smith) relates it was the custom of the Imperator M to
paint his whole body a bright red ;" and also, on as-
cending the Hill, to have some of the hostile chiefs
led aside " to the adjoining prison and put to death."
We propose to dispense with both these ceremonies.

C2

58

ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

THORNS IN THE CUSHION.

In the Essay with which our first Number closed,
the Cornhill Magazine was likened to a ship sail-
ing forth on her voyage, and the captain uttered a
very sincere prayer for her prosperity. The dangers
of storm and rock ; the vast outlay upon ship and
cargo, and the certain risk of the venture, gave the

THORNS IN THE CUSHION. 59

chief officer a feeling of no small anxiety ; for who
could say from what quarter danger might arise, and
how his owner's property might be imperiled? After
a six months' voyage, we with very thankful hearts
could acknowledge our good fortune ; and, taking up
the apologue in the Koundabout manner, we composed
a triumphal procession in honor of the Magazine, and
imagined the Imperator thereof riding in a sublime
car to return thanks in the Temple of Victory. Corn-
hill is accustomed to grandeur and greatness, and has
witnessed, every ninth of November for I don't know
how many centuries, a prodigious annual pageant,
chariot progress, and flourish of trumpetry ; and our
publishing office being so very near the Mansion-
House, I am sure the reader will understand how the
idea of pageant and procession came naturally to my
mind. The imagination easily supplied a gold coach,
eight cream-colored horses of your true Pegasus breed,
hurrahing multitudes, running footmen, and clanking
knights in armor, a chaplain and a sword-bearer with
a muff on his head, scowling out of the coach-window,
and a lord mayor all crimson, fur, gold chain, and
white ribbons, solemnly occupying the place of state.
A playful fancy could have carried the matter farther,
could have depicted the feast in the Egyptian Hall,
the ministers, chief justices, and right reverend prel-
ates taking their seats round about his lordship, the
turtle and other delicious viands, and Mr. Toole be-
hind the central throne, bawling out to the assembled
guests and dignitaries, " My Lord So-and-so, my Lord
What-d'ye-call-'im, my Lord Etcaetera, the lord mayor
pledges you all in a loving cup." Then the noble

60 ROUNDABOUT PAPEES.

proceedings come to an end; Lord Simper proposes
the ladies ; the company rises from table, and adjourns
to coffee and muffins. The carriages of the nobility
and guests roll back to the West. The Egyptian
Hall, so bright just now, appears in a twilight glim-
mer, in which waiters are seen ransacking the dessert
and rescuing the spoons. His lordship and thq lady
mayoress go into their private apartments ; the robes
are doffed, the collar and white ribbons are removed ;
the mayor becomes a man, and is pretty surely in a
fluster about the speeches which he has just uttered,
remembering too well now, wretched creature, the
principal points which he didn't make when he rose
to speak. He goes to bed to headache, to care, to re-
pentance, and, I dare say, to a dose of something which
his body -physician has prescribed for him. And there
are ever so many men in the city who fancy that man
happy !

Now suppose that all through that 9th of Novem-
ber his lordship has had a racking rheumatism, or a
toothache, let us say, during all dinner-time,- through
which he has been obliged to grin and mumble his
poor old speeches. Is he enviable ? Would you like
to change with his lordship ? Suppose that bumper
which his golden footman brings him, instead i'fack-
ins of ypocras or canary, contains some abomination
of senna ? Away ! Eemove the golden goblet, in-
sidious cup-bearer ! You now begin to perceive the
gloomy moral which I am about to draw.

Last month we sang the song of glorification, and
rode in the chariot of triumph. It was all very well.
It was right to hurrah, and be thankful, and cry Bravo,

THORNS IN THE CUSHION. 61

our side ! and besides, you know, there was the enjoy-
ment of thinking how pleased Brown, and Jones, and
Kobinson (our dear friends) would be at this announce-
ment of success. But, now that the performance is
over, my good sir, just step into my private room, and
see that it is not all pleasure — this winning of success-
es. Cast your eye over those newspapers, over those
letters. See what the critics say of your harmless
jokes, neat little trim sentences, and pet waggeries!
Why, you are no better than an idiot ; you are drivel-
ing; your powers have left you; this always over-
rated writer is rapidly sinking to, etc.

This is not pleasant ; but neither is this the point.
It may be the critic is right and the author wrong.
It may be that the archbishop's sermon is not so fine
as some of those discourses twenty years ago which
used to delight the faithful in Granada, Or it may
be (pleasing thought !) that the critic is a dullard, and
does not understand what he is writing about. Every
body who has been to an exhibition has heard visitors
discoursing about the pictures before their faces. One
says, " This is very well ;" another says, " This is stuff
and rubbish ;" another cries, " Bravo ! this is a master-
piece ;" and each has a right to his opinion. For ex-
ample, one of the pictures I admired most at the Eoy-
al Academy is by a gentleman on whom I never, to
my knowledge, set eyes. This picture is No. 346,
Moses, by Mr. S. Solomon. I thought it had a great
intention. I thought it finely drawn and composed.
It nobly represented, to my mind, the dark children
of the Egyptian bondage, and suggested the touching
story. My newspaper says, "Two ludicrously ugly

62 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

women, looking at a dingy baby, do not form a pleas-
ing object;" and so good-by, Mr. Solomon. Are not
most of our babies served so in life ? and doesn't Mr.
Eobinson consider Mr. Brown's cherub an ugly, squall-
ing little brat ? So cheer up, Mr. S. S. It may be the
critic who discoursed on your baby is a bad judge of
babies. When Pharaoh's kind daughter found the
child, and cherished and loved it, and took it home,
and found a nurse for it too, I dare say there were
grim, brickdust-colored chamberlains, or some of the
tough, old, meagre, yellow princesses at court, who
never had children themselves, who cried out, " Faugh!
the horrid little squalling wretch !" and knew he would
never come to good ; and said, " Didn't I tell you so ?"
when he assaulted the Egyptian.

Never mind then, Mr. S. Solomon, I say, because a
critic pooh-poohs your work of art — your Moses —
your child — your foundling. Why, did not a wise-
acre in Blackwood' 's Magazine lately fall foul of Tom
Jones ? Oh hypercritic ! So, to be sure, did good old
Mr. Eichardson, who could write novels himself; but
you, and I, and Mr. Gibbon, my dear sir, agree in giv-
ing our respect, and wonder, and admiration to the
brave old master.

In these last words I am supposing the respected
reader to be endowed with a sense of humor, which
he may or may not possess ; indeed, don't we know
many an honest man who can no more comprehend a
joke than he can turn a tune ? But I take for grant-*
ed, my dear sir, that you are brimming over with fun ;
you mayn't make jokes, but you could if you would
— you know you could ; and in your quiet way you

THOKNS IN THE CUSHION. 63

enjoy them extremely. Now many people neither
make them, nor understand them when made, nor like
them when understood ; and are suspicious, testy, and
angry with jokers. Have you ever watched an elder-
ly male or female — an elderly "party," so to speak,
who begins to find out that some young wag of the
company is "charring" him? Have you ever tried
the sarcastic or Socratic method with a child ? Little
simple he or she, in the innocence of the simple heart,
plays some silly freak, or makes some absurd remark,
which you turn to ridicule. The little creature dimly
perceives that you are making fun of him, writhes,
blushes, grows uneasy, bursts into tears — upon my
word it is not fair to try the weapon of ridicule upon
that innocent young victim. The awful objurgatory
practice he is accustomed to. Point out his fault, and
lay bare the dire consequences thereof; expose it
roundly, and give him a proper, solemn, moral whip-
ping, but do not attempt to castigare ridendo. Do not
laugh at him writhing, and cause all the other boys in
the school to laugh. Eemember your own young
days at school, my friend — the tingling cheeks, burn-
ing ears, bursting heart, and passion of desperate tears,
with which you looked up, after having performed
some blunder, while the doctor held you to public
scorn before the class, and cracked his great clumsy
jokes upon you — helpless, and a prisoner! Better
the block itself, and the lictors, with their fasces of
birch twigs, than the maddening torture of those
jokes !

Now with respect to jokes — and the present com-
pany of course excepted — many people, perhaps most

64 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

people, are as infants. They have little sense of hu-
mor. They don't like jokes. Eaillery in writing an-
noys and offends them. The coarseness apart, I think
I have met very, very few women who liked the ban-
ter of Swift and Fielding. Their simple, tender na-
tures revolt at laughter. Is the satyr always a wick-
ed brute at heart, and are they rightly shocked at his
grin, his leer, his horns, hoofs, and ears ? Fi done, le
vilain monstre, with his shrieks, and his capering crook-
ed legs ! Let him go and get a pair of well- wadded
black silk stockings, and pull them over those horrid
shanks ; put a large gown and bands over beard and
hide ; and pour a dozen of lavender water into his
lawn handkerchief, and cry, and never make a joke
again. It shall all be highly-distilled poesy, and per-
fumed sentiment, and gushing eloquence ; and the foot
shdnH peep out, and a plague take it. Cover it up
with the surplice. Out with your cambric, dear la-
dies, and let us all whimper together.

Now, then, hand on heart, we declare that it is not
the fire of adverse critics which afflicts or frightens
the editorial bosom. They may be right ; they may
be rogues who have a personal spite ; they may be
dullards who kick and bray as their nature is to do,
and prefer thistles to pine-apples ; they may be con-
scientious, acute, deeply learned, delightful judges,
who see your joke in a moment, and the profound
wisdom lying underneath. Wise or dull, laudatory
or otherwise, we put their opinions aside. If they ap-
plaud, we are pleased ; if they shake their quick pens,
and fly off with a hiss, we resign their favors and put
on all the fortitude we can muster. I would rather

THORNS IN THE CUSHION. 65

have the lowest man's good word than his bad one, to
be sure ; but as for coaxing a compliment, or wheed-
ling him into good-humor, or stopping his angry
mouth with a good dinner, or accepting his contribu-
tions for a certain Magazine, for fear of his barking or
snapping elsewhere — allons done ! These shall not be
our acts. Bow-wow, Cerberus ! Here shall be no
sop for thee, unless — unless Cerberus is an uncom-
monly good dog, when we shall bear no malice be-
cause he flew at us from our neighbor's gate.

What, then, is the main grief you spoke of as an-
noying you — the toothache in the lord mayor's jaw,
the thorn in the cushion of the editorial chair ? It is
there. Ah ! it stings me now as I write. It comes
with almost every morning's post. At night I come
home, and take my letters up to bed (not daring to
open them), and in the morning I find one, two, three
thorns on my pillow. Three I extracted yesterday ;
two I found this morning. They don't sting quite so
sharply as they did ; but a skin is a skin, and they
bite, after all, most wickedly. It is all very fine to
advertise on the Magazine, " Contributions are only to
be sent to 65 Cornhill, and not to the editor's private
residence." My dear sir, how little you know man-
or woman-kind if you fancy they will take that sort
of warning ! How am I to know (though, to be sure,
I begin to know now), as I take the letters off the
tray, which of those envelopes contains a real bona
fide letter and which a thorn? One of the best in-
vitations this year I mistook for a thorn-letter, and
kept it without opening. This is what I call a thorn-
letter :

66 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

*

Camberwell, June 4.
Sir, — May I hope, may I entreat, that you will favor me by pe-
rusing the inclosed lines, and that they may be found worthy of in-
sertion in the Comhill Magazine ? We have known better days, sir.
I have a sick and widowed mother to maintain, and little brothers
and sisters who look to me. I do my utmost as a governess to sup-
port them. I toil at night when they are at rest, and my own hand
and brain are alike tired. If I could add but a little to our means by
my pen, many of my poor invalid's wants might be supplied, and I
could procure for her comforts to which she is now a stranger.
Heaven knows it is not for want of will or for want of energy on my
part that she is now in ill health, and our little household almost with-
out bread. Do — do cast a kind glance over my poem, and if you can
help us, the widow, the orphans will bless you! I remain, sir, in
anxious expectancy, your faithful servant, S. S. S.

And inclosed is a little poem or two, and an envelope
with its penny stamp — Heaven help us! — and the
writer's name and address.

Now you see what I mean by a thorn. Here is the
case put with true female logic. " I am poor ; I am
good ; I am ill ; I work hard ; I have a sick mother
and hungry brothers and sisters dependent on me.
You can help us if you will." And then I look at
the paper, with the thousandth part of a faint hope
that it may be suitable, and I find it won't do ; and I
knew it wouldn't do ; and why is this poor lady to
appeal to my pity, and bring her poor little ones
kneeling to my bedside, and calling for bread which
I can give them if I choose ? No day passes but that
argument ad misericordiam is used. Day and night
that sad voice is crying out for help. Thrice it ap-
pealed to me yesterday. Twice this morning it cried
to me ; and I have no doubt, when I go to get my
hat, I shall find it, with its piteous face and its pale

THORNS IN THE CUSHION. 67

family about it, waiting for me in the hall. One of
the immense advantages which women have over our
sex is that they actually like to read these letters.
Like letters? Oh mercy on us! Before I was an
editor I did not like the postman much ; but now !

A very common way with these petitioners is to
begin with a fine flummery about the merits and
eminent genius of the person whom they are address-
ing. But this artifice, I state publicly, is of no avail.
When I see that kind of herb, I know the snake with-
in it, and fling it away before it has time to sting.
Away, reptile, to the waste-paper basket, and thence
to the flames !

But of these disappointed people, some take their
disappointment and meekly bear it. Some hate and
hold you their enemy because you could not be their
friend. Some, furious and envious, say, " Who is this
man who refuses what I offer, and how dares he, the
conceited coxcomb, to deny my merit ?"

Sometimes my letters contain not mere thorns, but
bludgeons. Here are two choice slips from that noble
Irish oak, which has more than once supplied alpeens
for this meek and unoffending skull :

Theatre Royal, Donnybrook.

Sir, — I have just finished reading the first portion of your tale,
Lovel the Widower, and am much surprised at the unwarrantable
strictures you pass therein on the corps de ballet.

I have been for more than ten years connected with the theatrical
profession, and I beg to assure you that the majority of the corps de
ballet are virtuous, well-conducted girls, and, consequently, that snug
cottages are not taken for them in the Regent's Park.

I also have to inform you that theatrical managers are in the habit
of speaking good Euglish, possibly better English than authors.

DO ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

You either know nothing of the subject in question, or you assert a
willful falsehood.

I am happy to say that the characters of the corps de ballet, as also
those of actors and actresses, are superior to the snarlings of dyspeptic
libelers, or the spiteful attacks and brutum fulmen of ephemeral au-
thors. I am, sir, your obedient servant,

The Editor of the Corrihill Magazine. A. B. C.

Theatre Royal, Donnybrook.

Sir, — I have just read, in the Cornhill Magazine for January, the
first portion of a tale written by you, and entitled Lovel the Widower.

In the production in question you employ all your malicious' spite
(and you have great capabilities that way) in trying to degrade the
character of the corps de ballet. When you imply that the majority
of ballet-girls have villas taken for them in the Regent's Park, / say
you tell a deliberate falsehood.

Haveing been brought up to the stage from infancy, and, though
now an actress, haveing been seven years principal dancer at the op-
era, I am competent to speak on the subject. I am only surprised
that so vile a libeler as yourself should be allowed to preside at the
Dramatic Fund dinner on the 22d instant. I think it would be much
better if you were to reform your own life, instead of telling lies of
those who are immeasurably your superiors.

Yours in supreme disgust, A. D.

The signatures of the respected writers are altered,
and for the site of their Theatre Eojal an adjacent
place is named, which (as I may have been falsely in-
formed) used to be famous for quarrels, thumps, and
broken heads. But, I say, is this an easy chair to sit
on when you are liable to have a pair of such shilla-
lahs flung at it ? And, prithee, what was all- the quar-
rel about ? In the little history of Lovel the Widower
I described, and brought to condign punishment, a
certain wretch of a ballet-dancer, who lived splendid-
ly for a while on ill-gotten gains, had an accident, and
lost her beauty, and died poor, deserted, ugly, and ev-

THOKNS IN THE CUSHION. 69

ery way odious. In the same page. other little ballet-
dancers are described, wearing homely clothing, doing
their duty, and carrying their humble savings to the
family at home. But nothing will content my dear
correspondents but to have me declare that the major-
ity of ballet-dancers have villas in the Eegent's Park,
and to convict me of " deliberate falsehood." Sup-
pose, for instance, I had chosen to introduce a red-
haired washerwoman into a story? I might get an
expostulatory letter saying, "Sir, in stating that the
majority of washerwomen are red-haired, you are a
liar ! and you had best not speak of ladies who are
immeasurably your superiors." Or suppose I had
ventured to describe an illiterate haberdasher ? One
of the craft might write to me, " Sir, in describing
haberdashers as illiterate, you utter a willful false-
hood. Haberdashers use much better English than
authors." It is a mistake, to be sure. I have never
said what my correspondents say I say. There is the
text under their noses, but what if they choose to read
it their own way ? " Hurroo, lads ! Here's for a
fight. There's a bald head peeping out of the hut.
There's a bald head ! It must be Tim Malone's."
And whack ! come down both the bludgeons at once.
Ah me ! we wound where we never intended to
strike ; we create anger where we never meant harm ;
and these thoughts are the thorns in our Cushion.
Out of mere malignity, I suppose, there is no man
who would like to make enemies. But here, in this
editorial business, you can't do otherwise : and a queer,
sad, strange, bitter thought it is, that must cross the
mind of many a public man : "Do what I will, be in-

70 BOUND ABOUT PAPEBS.

nocent or spiteful, be generous or cruel, there are A
and B, and C and D, who will hate me to the end of
the chapter — to the chapter's end — to the Finis of the
page — when hate, and envy, and fortune, and disap-
pointment shall be over."

ON SCREENS IN DINING-ROOMS.

71

ON SCREENS IN DINING-ROOMS,

GRANDSON of the

late Eev. Dr. Prim-
rose (of Wakefield,
vicar) wrote me a
ffllSIL little note from his
country living this
morning, and the
kind fellow had the
precaution to write
" No thorn" upon
the envelope, so that
ere I broke the seal
my mind might be
relieved of any anx-
iety lest the letter
should contain one
of those lurking
stabs which are so
painful to the present gentle writer. Your epigraph,
my dear P., shows your kind and artless nature ; but
don't you see it is of no use ? People who are bent
upon assassinating you in the manner mentioned will
write " No thorn" upon their envelopes too ; and you
open the case, and presently out flies a poisoned stilet-
to, which springs into a man's bosom, and makes the

72 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

wretch howl with anguish. When the bailiffs are aft-
er a man, they adopt all sorts of disguises, pop out on
him from all conceivable corners, and tap his miser-
able shoulder. His wife is taken ill ; his sweet-heart,
who remarked his brilliant, too brilliant appearance at
the Hyde Park review, will meet him at Cremorne, or
where you will. The old friend who has owed him
that money these five years will meet him at so-and-so
and pay. By one bait or other the victim is hooked,
netted, landed, and down goes the basket-lid. It is
not your wife, your sweet-heart, your friend, who is go-
ing to pay you ; it is Mr. Nab the bailiff. You know
— you are caught. You are off in a cab to Chancery
Lane.

You know, I say ? Why should you know ? I
make no manner of doubt you never were taken by a
bailiff in your life. I never was. I have been in two
or three debtors' prisons, but not on my own account.
Goodness be praised ! I mean you can't escape your
lot ; and Nab only stands here metaphorically as the
watchful, certain, and untiring officer of Mr. Sheriff
Fate. Why, my dear Primrose, this morning along
with your letter comes another, bearing the well-
known superscription of another old friend, which I
open without the least suspicion, and what do I find ?
A few lines from my friend Johnson, it is true, but
they are written on a page covered with feminine
handwriting. "Dear Mr. Johnson," says the writer,
" I have just been perusing with delight a most charm-
ing tale by the Archbishop of Cambray. It is called
Telemaclms ; and I think it would be admirably suited
to the Cornhill Magazine. As you know the editor,

ON SCKEENS IN DINING-ROOMS. 73

will you have the great kindness, dear Mr. Johnson,
to communicate with him personally (as that is much
better than writing in a roundabout way to Cornhill,
and waiting goodness knows how long for an answer),
and stating my readiness to translate this excellent
and instructive story. I do not wish to breathe a
word against Lovel Parsonage, Framley the Widower,
or any of the novels which have appeared in the Corn-
hill Magazine, but I am sure Telemachus is as good as
new to English readers, and in point of interest and
morality far" etc., etc., etc.

There it is. I am stabbed through Johnson. He
has lent himself to this attack on me. He is weak
about women. Other strong men are. He submits
to the common lot, poor fellow. In my reply I do
not use a word of unkindness. I write him back gen-
tly that I fear Telemachus won't suit us. He can send
the letter on to his fair correspondent. But, however
soft the answer, I question whether the wrath will be
turned away. Will there not be a coolness between
him and the lady? and is it not possible that hence-
forth her fine eyes will look with darkling glances
upon the pretty orange cover of our Magazine ?

Certain writers, they say, have a bad opinion of
women. Now am I very whimsical in supposing that
this disappointed candidate will be hurt at her rejec-
tion, and angry or cast down according to her na-
ture ? " Angry, indeed I" says Juno, gathering up her
purple robes and royal raiment. " Sorry, indeed !"
cries Minerva, lacing on her corslet again, and scowl-
ing under her helmet. (I imagine the well-known
Apple case has just been argued and decided.) " Hurt,

D

74 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

forsooth! Do you suppose we care for the opinion
of that hobnailed lout of a Paris? Do you suppose
that I, the Goddess of Wisdom, can't make allowances
for mortal ignorance, and am so base as to bear malice
against a poor creature who knows no better? You
little know the goddess Nature when you dare to in-
sinuate that our divine minds are actuated by motives
so base. A love of justice influences us. We are
above mean revenge. We are too magnanimous to
be angry at the award of such a judge in favor of such
a creature." And rustling out their skirts, the ladies
walk away together. This is all very well. You
are bound to believe them. They are actuated by no
hostility — not they. They bear no malice — of course
not. But when the Trojan war Occurs presently,
which side will they take? Many brave souls will
be sent to Hades. Hector will perish. Poor old
Priam's bald numskull will be cracked, and Troy
town will burn, because Paris prefers golden-haired
Venus to ox-eyed Juno and gray-eyed Minerva.

The last Essay of this Koundabout Series, describ-
ing the griefs and miseries of the editorial chair, was
written, as the kind reader will acknowledge, in a
mild and gentle, not in a warlike or satirical spirit. I
showed how cudgels were applied ; but, surely, the
meek object of persecution hit no blows in return.
The beating did not hurt much, and the person as-
saulted could afford to keep his good-humor ; indeed,
I admired that brave though illogical little actress, of
the T. K. D-bl-n, for her fiery vindication of her pro-
fession's honor. I assure her I had no intention to
tell 1 — s — well, let us say, monosyllables — about my

ON SCREENS IN DINING-ROOMS. 75

superiors; and I wish her nothing but well, and when
Macmahon (or shall it be Mulligan ?), Roi cVIrlande,
ascends his throne, I hope she may be appointed pro-
fessor of English to the princesses of the royal house.
Nuper — in former days — I too have militated ; some-
times, as I now think, unjustly ; but always, I vow,
without personal rancor. Which of us has not idle
words to recall, flippant jokes to regret? Have you
never committed an imprudence? Have you never
had a dispute, and found out that you were wrong?
So much the worse for you. "Woe be to the man qui
croit toujours avoir raison. His anger is not a brief
madness, but a permanent mania. His rage is not a
fever-fit, but a black poison inflaming him, distorting
his judgment, disturbing his rest, imbittering his cup,
gnawing at his pleasures, causing him more cruel suf-
fering than ever he can inflict on his enemy. 0 la
belle morale / As I write it, I think about one or two
little affairs of my own. There is old Dr. Squaretoso
(he certainly was very rude to me, and that's the fact);
there is Madame Pomposa (and certainly her lady-
ship's behavior was about as cool as cool could be).
Never mind, old Squaretoso; never mind, Madame
Pomposa; here is a hand. Let us be friends, as we
once were, and have no more- of this rancor.

I had hardly sent that last Eoundabout Paper to
the printer (which, I submit, was written in a pacable
and not unchristian frame of mind), when Saturday
came, and with it, of course, my Saturday Review. I
remember at New York coming down to breakfast at
the hotel one morning, after a criticism had appeared
in the New York Herald, in which an Irish writer had

76 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

given me a dressing for a certain lecture on Swift.
Ah ! my dear little enemy of the T. E. D., what were
the cudgels in your little billet-doux compared to those
noble New York shillalahs ? All through the Union
the literary sons of Erin have marched alpeen-stock
in hand, and in every city of the States they call each
other and every body else the finest names. Having
come to breakfast, then, in the public room, I sit down,
and see — that the nine people opposite have all got
New York Heralds in their hands. One dear little
lady, whom I knew, and who sat opposite, gave a
pretty blush, and popped her paper under the table-
cloth. I told her I had had my whipping already in
my own private room, and begged her to continue her
reading. I may have undergone agonies, you see,
but every man who has been bred at an English pub-
lic school comes away from a private interview with
Dr. Birch with a calm, even a smiling face. And this
is not impossible, when you are prepared. You screw
your courage up — you go through the business. You
come back and take your seat on the form, showing
not the least symptom of uneasiness or of previous
unpleasantries. But to be caught suddenly up, and
whipped in the bosom of your family — to sit down to
breakfast, and cast your innocent eye on a paper, and
find, before you are aware, that the Saturday Monitor
or Black Monday Instructor has hoisted you and is lay-
ing on — that is indeed a trial. Or perhaps the fami-
ly has looked at the dreadful paper beforehand, and
weakly tries to hide it. " Where is the Instructor or
the Monitor F" say you. " Where is that paper ?" says
mamma to one of the young ladies. Lucy hasn't it.

ON SCREENS IN DINING-ROOMS. 77

Fanny hasn't seen it. Emily thinks that the govern-
ess has it. At last, out it is brought, that awful paper!
Papa is amazingly tickled with the article on Thom-
son ; thinks that show-up of Johnson is very lively ;
and now — Heaven be good to us ! — he has come to
the critique on himself: "Of all the rubbish which
we have had from Mr. Tomkins, we do protest and
vow that this last cart-load is," etc. Ah ! poor Tom-
kins ! but most of all, ah ! poor Mrs. Tomkins, and
poor Emily, and Fanny, and Lucy, who have to sit by
and see paterfamilias put to the torture !

Now, on this eventful Saturday, I did not cry, be-
cause it was not so much the editor as the publisher
of the Cornhill Magazine who was brought out for a
dressing ; and it is wonderful how gallantly one bears
the misfortunes of one's friends. That a writer should
be taken to task about his books is fair, and he must
abide the praise or the censure ; but that a publisher
should be criticised for his dinners, and for the conver-
sation which did not take place there — is this toler-
able press practice, legitimate joking, or honorable war-
fare? I have not the honor to know my next-door
neighbor, but I make no doubt that he receives his
friends at dinner ; I see his wife and children pass con-
stantly ; I even know the carriages of some of the peo-
ple who call upon him, and could tell their names.
Now, suppose his servants were to tell mine what the
doings are next door, who comes to dinner, what is
eaten and said, and I were to publish an account of
these transactions in a newspaper, I could assuredly
get money for the report ; but ought I to write it, and
what would you think of me for doing so?

78 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

And suppose, Mr. Saturday Eeviewer — you censor
morum, you who pique yourself (and justly and hon-
orably in the main) upon your character of gentleman
as well as of writer — suppose, not that you yourself
invent and indite absurd twaddle about gentlemen's
private meetings and transactions, but pick this wretch-
ed garbage out of a New York street, and hold it up
for your readers' amusement — don't you think, my
friend, that you might have been better employed ?
Here, in my Saturday Review, and in an American pa-
per subsequently sent to me, I light, astonished, on an
account of the dinners of my friend and publisher,
which are described as " tremendously heavy," of the
conversation (which does not take place), and of the
guests assembled at the table. I am informed that
the proprietor of the Cornhill, and the host on these
occasions, is " a very good man, but totally unread ;"
and that on my asking him whether Dr. Johnson was
dining behind the screen, he said, " God bless my soul,
my dear sir, there's no person by the name of John-
son here, nor any one behind the screen," and that a
roar of laughter cut him short. I am informed by the
same New York correspondent that I have touched
up a contributor's article ; that I once said to a liter-
ary gentleman, who was proudly pointing to an anony-
mous article as his writing, "Ah! I thought I recog-
nized your hoof in it." I am told by the same author-
ity that the Cornhill Magazine " shows symptoms of
being on the wane," and having sold nearly a hund-
red thousand copies, he (the correspondent) "should
think forty thousand was now about the mark." Then
the graceful writer passes on to the dinners, at which

ON SCREENS IN DINING-ROOMS. 79

it appears the editor of the Magazine " is the great gun,
and comes out with all the geniality in his power."

Now suppose this charming intelligence is untrue ?
Suppose the publisher (to recall the words of my friend
the Dublin actor of last month) is a gentleman to the
full as well informed as those whom he invites to his
table ? Suppose he never made the remark beginning
" God bless my soul, my dear sir," etc., nor any thing
resembling it? Suppose nobody roared with laugh-
ing ? Suppose the editor of the Cornhill Magazine
never " touched up" one single line of the contribu-
tion which bears " marks of his hand ?" Suppose he
never said to any literary gentleman, " I recognized
your hoof in any periodical whatever? Suppose the
40,000 subscribers, which the writer to New York
"considered to be about the mark," should be be-
tween 90,000 and 100,000 (and as he will have fig-
ures, there they are) ? Suppose this back-door gossip
should be utterly blundering and untrue, would any
one wonder? Ah ! if we had only enjoyed the hap-
piness to number this writer among the contributors
to our Magazine, what a cheerfulness and easy confi-
dence his presence would impart to our meetings ! He
would find that " poor Mr. Smith" had heard that rec-
ondite anecdote of Dr. Johnson behind the screen ; and
as for "the great gun of those banquets," with what
geniality should not I " come out" if I had an amiable
companion close by me, dotting down my conversation
for the New York Times!

Attack our books, Mr. Correspondent, and welcome.
They are fair subjects for just censure or praise. But
woe be to you if you allow private rancors or animos-

80 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

ities to influence you in the discharge of your public
duty. In the little court where you are paid to sit as
judge, as critic, you owe it to your employers, to your
conscience, to the honor of your calling,- to deliver just
sentences ; and you shall have to answer to Heaven
for your dealings, as surely as my lord chief justice on
the bench. The dignity of letters, the honor of the
literary calling, the slights put by haughty and Un-
thinking people upon literary men — don't we hear
outcries upon these subjects raised daily? As dear
Sam Johnson sits behind the screen, too proud to show
his threadbare coat and patches among the more pros-
perous brethren of his trade, there is no want of dig-
nity in him, in that homely image of labor ill reward-
ed, genius as yet unrecognized, independence sturdy
and uncomplaining. But Mr. Nameless, behind the
publisher's screen uninvited, peering at the company
and the meal, catching up scraps of the jokes, and
noting down the guests' behavior and conversation,
what a figure his is ! Allans, Mr. Nameless ! Put up
your note-book, walk out of the hall, and leave gen-
tlemen alone who would be private, and wish you no
harm. . . - . ,

TUNBRIDGE TOYS.

81

TUNBRIDGE TOYS

wonder whether those little silver pencil-cases
with a movable almanac at the butt-end are still favor-
ite implements with boys, and whether peddlers still
hawk them about the country? Are there peddlers
and hawkers still, or are rustics and children grown
too sharp to deal with them ? Those pencil-cases, as
far as my memory serves me, were not of much use.
The screw, upon which the movable almanac turned,

D2

82 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

was constantly getting loose. The 1 of the table would
work from its moorings, under Tuesday or Wednes-
day, as the case might be, and you would find, on ex-
amination, that Th. or W. was the 23J of the month
(which was absurd on the face of the thing), and in a
word your cherished pencil-case an utterly unreliable
time-keeper. Nor was this a matter of wonder. Con-
sider the position of a pencil-case in a boy's pocket.
You had hard-bake in it ; marbles, kept in your purse
when the money was all gone ; your mother's purse
knitted so fondly and supplied with a little bit of gold,
long since — prodigal little son! — scattered among the
swine — I mean among brandy-balls, open tarts, three-
cornered puffs, and similar abominations. You had a
top and string ; a knife ; a piece of cobbler's wax ;
two or three bullets ; a Little Warbler ; and I, for my
part, remember, for a considerable period, a brass-bar-
reled pocket-pistol (which would fire beautifully, for
with it I shot off a button from Butt Major's jacket) ;
with all these things, and ever so many more, clink-
ing and rattling in your pockets, and your hands, of
course, keeping them in perpetual movement, how
could you expect your movable almanac not to be
twisted out of its place now and again — your pencil-
case to be bent — your licorice water not to leak out
of your bottle over the cobbler's wax — your bull's-
eyes not to ram up the lock and barrel of your pistol,
and so forth.

In the month of June, thirty-seven years ago, I
bought one of those pencil-cases from a boy whom I
shall call Hawker, and who was in my form. Is he
dead? Is he a millionaire? Is he a bankrupt now ?

TUNBRIDGE TOYS. 83

He was an immense screw at school, and I believe to
this day that the value of the thing for which I owed
and eventually paid three and sixpence was in reality
not one and nine.

I certainly enjoyed the case at first a good deal, and
amused myself with twiddling round the movable cal-
endar. But this pleasure wore off. The jewel, as I
said, was not paid for, and Hawker, a large and vio-
lent boy, was exceedingly unpleasant as a creditor.
His constant remark was, " When are you going to
pay me that three and sixpence ? What sneaks your
relations must be ! They come to see you. You go
out to them on Saturdays and Sundays, and they nev-
er give you any thing ! Don't tell Tne, you little hum-
bug!" and so forth. The truth is, that my relations
were respectable ; but my parents were making a tour
in Scotland ; and my friends in London, whom I used
to go and see, were most kind to me, certainly, but
somehow never tipped me. That term, of May to
August, 1823, passed in agonies then, in consequence
of my debt to Hawker. What was the pleasure of a
calendar pencil-case in comparison with the doubt and
torture of mind occasioned by the sense of the debt,
and the constant reproach in that fellow's scowling
eyes, and gloomy, coarse reminders ? How was I to
pay off such a debt out of sixpence a week? Ludic-
rous ! Why did not some one come to see me, and
tip me? Ah! my dear sir, if you have any little
friends at school, go and see them, and do the natural
thing by them. You won't miss the sovereign. You
don't know what a blessing it will be to them. Don't
fancy they are too old — try 'em. And they will re-

84 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

member you, and bless you in future days ; and their
gratitude shall accompany your dreary after-life ; and
they shall meet you kindly when thanks for kindness
are scant. Oh mercy ! shall I ever forget that sover-
eign you gave me, Captain Bob ? or the agonies of be-
ing in debt to Hawker? In that very term, a rela-
tion of mine was going to India. I actually was
fetched from school in order to take leave of him. I
am afraid I told Hawker of this circumstance. I own
I speculated upon my friend's giving me a pound.
A pound? Pooh! A relation going to India, and
deeply affected at parting from his darling kinsman,
might give five pounds to the dear fellow ! . . . .
There was Hawker when I came back — of course
there he was. As he looked in my scared face, his
turned livid with rage. He muttered curses, terrible
from the lips of so young a boy. My relation, about
to cross the ocean to fill a lucrative appointment,
asked me with much interest about my progress at
school, heard me construe a passage of Eutropius, the
pleasing Latin work on which I was then engaged ;
gave me a God bless you, and sent me back to school ;
upon my word of honor, without so much as a half
crown ! It is all very well, my dear sir, to say that
boys contract habits of expecting tips from their par-
ents' friends, that they become avaricious, and so forth.
Avaricious ! fudge ! Boys contract habits of tart and
toffy eating, which they do not carry into after-life.
On the contrary, I wish I did like 'em. What rap-
tures of pleasure one could have now for five shillings,
if one could but pick it off the pastry-cook's tray!
No. If you have any little friends at school, out with

TUNBRIDGE TOYS. 85

your half crowns, my friend, and impart to those lit-
tle ones the little fleeting joys of their age.

Well, then. At the beginning of August, 1823,
Bartlemy-tide holidays came, and I was to go to my
parents, who were at Tunbridge Wells. My place in
the coach was taken by my tutor's servants — Bolt-in-
Tun, Fleet Street, seven o'clock in the morning, was

the word. My tutor, the Rev. Edward P , to

whom I hereby present my best compliments, had a
parting interview with me ; gave me my little account
for my governor; the remaining part of the coach-
hire ; five shillings for my own expenses ; and some
five-and-twenty shillings on an old account which had
been overpaid, and was to be restored to my family.

Away I ran and paid Hawker his three and six.
Ouf! what a weight it was off my mind! (He was a
Norfolk boy, and used to go home from Mrs. Nelson's
Bell Inn, Aldgate ; but that is not to the point.) The
next morning, of course, we were an hour before the
time. I and another boy shared a hackney-coach —
two and six : porter for putting luggage on coach,
threepence. I had no more money of my own left.
Rasherwell, my companion, went into the Bolt-in-Tun
coffee-room, and had a good breakfast. I couldn't;
because, though I had five-and-twenty shillings of my
parents' money, I had none of my own, you see.

I certainly intended to go without breakfast, and
still remember how strongly I had that resolution in
my mind. But there was that hour to wait. A beau-
tiful August morning — I am very hungry. There is
Rasherwell "tucking" away in the coffee-room. I
pace the street, as sadly almost as if I had been com-

86 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

ing to school, not going thence. I turn into a court
by mere chance — I vow it was by mere chance* — and
there I see a coffee-shop with a placard in the window,
Coffee, twopence ; round of buttered toast, twopence. And
here am I hungry, penniless, with flve-and- twenty shil-
lings of my parents7 money in my pocket.

What would you have done ? You see I had had
my money, and spent it in that pencil-case affair.
The flve-and-twenty shillings were a trust, by me to
be handed over.

But then would my parents wish their only child to
be actually without breakfast ? Having this money,
and being so hungry, so very hungry, mightn't I take
ever so little ? Mightn't I at home eat as much as I
chose ?

Well, I went into the coffee-shop, and spent four-
pence. I remember the taste of the coffee and toast
to this day — a peculiar, muddy, not-sweet-enough,
most fragrant coffee — a rich, rancid, yet not-buttered-
enough, delicious toast. The waiter had nothing. At
any rate, fourpence I know was the sum I spent. And
the hunger appeased, I got on the coach a guilty being.

At the last stage — what is its name? I have for-
gotten in seven-and-thirty years — there is an inn with
a little green and trees before it, and by the trees
there is an open carriage. It is our carriage. Yes,
there are Prince and Blucher, the horses, and my par-
ents in the carriage. Oh ! how I had been counting
the days until this one came ! Oh ! how happy had
I been to see them yesterday ! But there was that
fourpence. All the journey down the toast had
choked me, and the coffee poisoned me.

TUNBRIDGE TOYS. 87

I was in such a state of remorse about the four-
pence that I forgot the maternal joy and caresses, the
tender paternal voice. I pull out the twenty-four
shillings and eightpence with a trembling hand.

"Here's your money," I gasp out, "which Mr.

P owes you, all but fourpence. I owed three

and sixpence to Hawker out of my money for a pen-
cil-case, and I had none left, and I took fourpence of
yours, and had some coffee at a shop."

I suppose I must have been choking while uttering
this confession.

" My dear boy," says the governor, " why didn't you
go and breakfast at the hotel ?"

•u He must be starved," says my mother.
. I had confessed ; I had been a prodigal ; I had been
taken back to my parents' arms again. It was not a
very great crime as yet, or a very long career of
prodigality ; but don't we know that a boy who takes
a pin which is not his own will take a thousand pounds
when occasion serves, bring his parents' gray heads
with sorrow to the grave, and carry his own to the
gallows? Witness the career of Dick Idle, upon
whom our friend Mr. Sala has been discoursing. Dick
only began by playing pitch -and-toss on a tombstone;
playing fair, for what we know; and even for that
sin he was promptly caned by the beadle. The bam-
boo was ineffectual to cane that reprobate's bad courses
out of him. From pitch-and-toss he proceeded to
manslaughter if necessary ; to highway robbery ; to
Tyburn and the rope there. Ah ! Heaven be thanked,
my parents' heads are still above the grass, and mine
still out of the noose.

88 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

As I look up from my desk, I see Tunbridge Wells
Common and the rocks, the strange familiar place
which I remember forty years ago. Boys saunter
over the green with stumps and cricket-bats. Other
boys gallop by on the riding-master's hacks. I pro-
test it is Cramp, Riding Master, as it used to be in the
reign of George IV., and that Centaur Cramp must be
at least a hundred years old. Yonder comes a foot-
man with a bundle of novels from the library. Are
they as good as our novels? Oh! how delightful
they were! Shades of Yalancour, awful ghost of
Manfroni, how I shudder at your appearance ! Sweet
image of Thaddeus of Warsaw, how often has this al-
most infantile hand tried to depict you in a Polish
cap and richly embroidered tights ! And as for Co-
rinthian Tom in light-blue pantaloons and Hessians,
and Jerry Hawthorn from the country, can all the
fashion, can all the splendor of real life which these
eyes have subsequently beheld, can all the wit I have
heard or read in later times, compare with your fash-
ion, with your brilliancy, with your delightful grace,
and sparkling vivacious rattle ?

Who knows? They may have kept those very
books at the library still — at the well-remembered
library on the Pantiles, where they sell that delight-
ful, useful Tunbridge ware. I will go and see. I
went my way to the Pantiles, the queer little old-
world Pantiles, where, a hundred years since, so much
good company came to take its pleasure. Is it possi-
ble that in the past century gentlefolks of the first
rank (as I read lately in a lecture on George II. in the
Cornliill Magazine) assembled here and entertained

TUNBRIDGE TOYS. 89

each other with gaming, dancing, fiddling, and tea?
There are fiddlers, harpers, and trumpeters perform-
ing at this moment in a weak little old balcony, but
where is the fine company? Where are the earls,
duchesses, bishops, and magnificent embroidered game-
sters ? A half dozen of children and their nurses are
listening to the musicians ; an old lady or two in a
poke bonnet passes, and for the rest, I see but an un-
interesting population of native tradesmen. As for
the library, its window is full of pictures of burly
theologians, and their works, sermons, apologues, and
so forth. Can I go in and ask the young ladies at
the counter for Manfroni, or the One- Handed Monk, and
Life in London, or the Adventures of Corinthian Tom,
Jeremiah Haivthorn, Esq., and their friend Bob Logic f
Absurd. I turn away abashed from the casement —
from the Pantiles — no longer Pantiles, but Parade. I
stroll over the Common, and survey the beautiful
purple hills around, twinkling with a thousand bright
villas, which have sprung up over this charming
ground since first I saw it. What an admirable scene
of peace and plenty! What a delicious air breathes
over the heath, blows the cloud shadows across it, and
murmurs through the full-clad trees ! Can the world
show a land fairer, richer, more cheerful? I see a
portion of it when I look up from the window at
which I write. But fair scene, green woods, bright
terraces gleaming in sunshine, and purple clouds swoll-
en with summer rain — nay, the very pages over which
my head bends, disappear from before my eyes. They
are looking backward — back into forty years off, into
a dark room, into a little house hard by on the Com-

90 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

mon here, in the Bartlemy-tide holidays. The par-
ents have gone to town for two days ; the house is all
his own — his own and a grim old maid-servant's, and
a little boy is seated at night in the lonely drawing-
room, poring over Manfrom, or the One-Handed Monk,
so frightened that he scarcely dares to turn round.

DE JUVENTUTE.

01

DE JUVENTUTE.

UR last Paper of this vera-
cious and roundabout series
related to a period which
can only be historical to a
great number of readers of
this Magazine. Four I saw
at the station to-day with
orange - covered books in
their hands, who can but
have known George IV. by
books, and statues, and pictures. Elderly gentlemen
were in their prime, old men in their middle age, when
he reigned over us. His image remains on coins ; on
a picture or two hanging here and there in a Club or
old-fashioned dining-room ; on horseback, as at Trafal-
gar Square, for example, where I defy any monarch to
look more uncomfortable. He turns up in sundry
memoirs and histories which have been published of
late days ; in Mr. Massey's History ; in the Bucking-
ham and Grenville Correspondence; and gentlemen
who have accused a certain writer of disloyalty are re-
ferred to those volumes to see whether the picture
drawn of George is overcharged. Charon has paddled
him off; he has mingled with the crowded republic
of the dead. His efUgy smiles from a canvas or two.

92 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

Breechless lie bestrides his steed in Trafalgar Square.
I believe he still wears his robes at Madame Tussaud's
(Madame herself having quitted Baker Street and life,
and found him she modeled t'other side the Stygian
stream). On the head of a five-shilling piece we still
occasionally come upon him, with St. George, the drag-
on-slayer, on the other side of the coin. Ah me ! did
this George slay many dragons? Was he a brave,
heroic champion, and rescuer of virgins ? "Well ! well !
have you and I overcome all the dragons that assail
us f come alive and victorious out of all the caverns
which we have entered in life, and succored, at risk
of life and limb, all poor distressed persons in whose
naked limbs the dragon Poverty is about to fasten his
fangs, whom the dragon Crime is poisoning with his
horrible breath, and about to crunch up and devour ?
Oh my royal liege ! Oh my gracious prince and war-
rior ! You a champion to fight that monster ? Your
feeble spear ever pierce that slimy paunch or plated
back ? See how the flames come gurgling out of his
red-hot brazen throat! What a roar! Nearer and
nearer he trails, with eyes flaming like the lamps of a
railroad engine. How he squeals, rushing out through
the darkness of his tunnel ! Now he is near. Now
he is here. And now — what ? — lance, shield, knight,
feathers, horse and all? Oh horror, horror! Next
day, round the monster's cave, there lie a few bones
more. You, who wish to keep yours in your skins,
be thankful that you are not called upon to go out
and fight dragons. Be grateful that they don't sally
out and swallow you. Keep a wise distance from their
caves, lest you pay too dearly for approaching them.

DE JUVENTUTE. 93

Remember that years passed, and whole districts were
ravaged, before the warrior came who was able to cope
with the devouring monster. When that knight does
make his appearance, with all my heart let us go out
and welcome him with our best songs, hurrahs, and lau-
rel wreaths, and eagerly recognize his valor and vic-
tory. But he comes only seldom. Countless knights
were slain before St. George won the battle. In the
battle of life are we all going to try for the honors of
championship ? If we can do our duty, if we can keep
our place pretty honorably through the combat, let us
say Laics Deo ! at the end of it, as the firing ceases, and
the night falls over the field.

The old were middle-aged, the elderly were in their
prime, then, thirty years since, when yon royal George
was still fighting the dragon. As for you, my pretty
lass, with your saucy hat and golden tresses tumbled
in your net, and you, my spruce young gentleman in
your mandarin's cap (the young folks at the country-
place where I am staying are so attired), your parents
were unknown to each other, and wore short frocks
and short jackets at the date of this five-shilling piece.
Only to-day I met a dog-cart crammed with children
— children with mustaches and mandarin caps — chil-
dren with saucy hats and hair-nets — children in short
frocks and knickerbockers (surely the prettiest boy's
dress that has appeared these hundred years) — chil-
dren from twenty years of age to six ; and father, with
mother by his side, driving in front — and on father's
countenance I saw that very laugh which I remember
perfectly in the time when this crown piece was coin-
ed— in his time, in King George's time, when we were

94 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

school-boys seated on the same form. The smile was
just as broad, as bright, as jolly, as I remember it in
the past — unforgotten, though not seen or thought of,
for how many decades of years, and quite and instant-
ly familiar, though so long out of sight.

Any contemporary of that coin who takes it up and
reads the inscription round the laureled head, "Geor-
gius IV. Britanniarum Eex. Fid. Def. 1823," if he will
but look steadily enough at the round, and utter the
proper incantation, I dare say may conjure back his
life there. Look well, my elderly friend, and tell me
what you see ? First, I see a sultan, with hair, beau-
tiful hair, and a crown of laurels round his head, and
his name is Georgius Eex. Fid. Def, and so on. Now
the sultan has disappeared ; and what is that I see ?
A boy — a boy in a jacket. He is at a desk; he has
great books before him — Latin and Greek books and
dictionaries. Yes, but behind the great books, which
he pretends to read, is a little one, with pictures, which
he is really reading. It is — yes, I can read now — it is
the Heart of Mid Lothian, by the author of Waverley
— or, no, it is Life in London, or the Adventures of Co-
rinthian Tom, Jeremiah Hawthorn, and their friend Bob
Logic, by Pierce Egan ; and it has pictures — oh ! such
funny pictures ! As he reads, there comes behind the
boy a man, a dervish, in a black gown, like a woman,
and a black square cap, and he has a book in each
hand, and he seizes the boy who is reading the pic-
ture-book, and lays his head upon one of his books,
and smacks it with the other. The boy makes faces,
and so that picture disappears.

Now the boy has grown bigger. He has got on a

DE JUVENTUTE. 95

black gown and cap, something like the dervish. He
is at a table, with ever so many bottles on it, and fruit,
and tobacco; and other young dervishes come in.
They seem as if they were singing. To them enters
an old moollah ; he takes down their names, and or-
ders them all to go to bed. What is this ? a carriage,
with four beautiful horses all galloping ; a man in red
is blowing a trumpet. Many young men are on the
carriage ; one of them is driving the horses. Surely
they won't drive into that — ah ! they have all disap-
peared ? And now I see one of the young men alone.
He is walking in a street — a dark street ; presently a
light comes to a window. There is the shadow of a
lady who passes. He stands there till the light goes
out. Now he is in a room scribbling on a piece of
paper, and kissing a miniature every now and then.
They seem to be lines each pretty much of a length.
I can read heart, smart, dart ; Mary, fairy ; Cupid, stu-
pid; true, you; and never mind what more. Bah!
it is bosh. Now see, he has got a gown on again, and
a wig of white hair on his head, and he is sitting with
other dervishes in a great room full of them, and on a
throne in the middle is an old sultan in scarlet, sitting
before a desk, and he wears a wig too ; and the young
man gets up and speaks to him. And now what is
here ? He is in a room with ever so many children,
and the miniature hanging up. Can it be a likeness
of that woman who is sitting before that copper urn,
with a silver vase in her hand, from which she is pour-
ing hot liquor into cups ? Was she ever a fairy ? She
is as fat as a hippopotamus now. He is sitting on a
divan by the fire. He has a paper on his knees. Read

96 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

the name of the paper. It is the Superfine Review. It
inclines to think that Mr. Dickens is not a true gentle-
man, that Mr. Thackeray is not a true gentleman, and
that when the one is pert and the other is arch, we,
the gentlemen of the Superfine Review, think, and think
rightly, that we have some cause to be indignant. The
great cause why modern humor and modern senti-
mentalism repel us is that they are unwarrantably fa-
miliar. Now, Mr. Sterne, the Superfine Revieiver thinks,
"was a true sentimentalist, because he was above all
things a true gentleman." The flattering influence is
obvious : let us be thankful for having an elegant mor-
alist watching over us, and learn, if not too old, to im-
itate his high-bred politeness and catch his unobtru-
sive grace. If we are unwarrantably familiar, we know
who is not. If we repel by pertness, we know who
never does. If our language offends, we know whose
is always modest. Oh pity ! The vision has disap-
peared off the silver, the images of youth and the past
are vanishing away ! We, who have lived before rail-
ways were made, belong to another world. In how
many hours could the Prince of Wales drive from
Brighton to London with a light carriage built ex-
pressly, and relays of horses longing to gallop the next
stage ? Do you remember Sir Somebody, the coach-
man of the Age, who took our half crown so affably ?
It was only yesterday ; but what a gulf between now
and then ? Then was the old world. Stage-coaches,
more or less swift, riding-horses, pack-horses, highway-
men, knights in armor, Norman invaders, Eoman le-
gions, Druids, Ancient Britons, painted blue, and so
forth — all these belong to the old period. I will con-

DE JUVENTUTE. 97

cede a halt in the midst of it, and allow that gunpow-
der and printing tended to modernize the world. But
your railroad starts the new era, and we of a certain
age belong to the new time and the old one. We are
of the time of chivalry as well as the Black Prince or
Sir Walter Manny. We are of the age of steam. We
have stepped out of the old world on to Brunei's vast
deck, and across the waters ingeiis patet tellus. Toward
what new continent are we wending? to what new
laws, new manners, new politics, vast new expanses
of liberties unknown as yet, or only surmised ? I used
to know a man who had invented a flying-machine.
"Sir," he would say, "give me but five hundred
pounds, and I will make it. It is so simple of con-
struction that I tremble daily lest some other person
should light upon and patent my discovery." Per-
haps faith was wanting; perhaps the five hundred
pounds. He is dead, and somebody else must make
the flying-machine. But that will only be a step for-
ward on the journey already begun since we quitted
the old world. There it lies on the other side of yon-
der embankments. You young folks have never seen
it ; and Waterloo is to you no more than Agincourt,
and George IY. than Sardanapalus. We elderly peo-
ple have lived in that prserailroad world, which has
passed into limbo and vanished from under us. I tell
you it was firm under our feet once, and not long ago.
They have raised those railroad embankments up, and
shut off the old world that was behind them. Climb
up that bank on which the irons are laid, and look to
the other side — it is gone. There is no other side.
Try and catch yesterday. Where is it? Here is a

E

98 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

Times newspaper, dated Monday, 26th, and this is Tues-
day, 27th. Suppose you deny there was such a day
as yesterday ?

We who lived before railways, and survive out of
the ancient world, are like Father Noah and his family
out of the Ark. The children will gather round and
say to us patriarchs, " Tell us, grandpapa, about the
old world." And we shall mumble our old stories;
and we shall drop off one by one; and there will be
fewer and fewer of us, and these very old and feeble.
There will be but ten praerailroadites left ; then three ;
then two ; then one ; then 0 ! If the hippopotamus
had the least sensibility (of which I can not trace any
signs either in his hide or his face), I think he would
go down to the bottom of his tank, and never come
up again. Does he not see that he belongs to by-gone
ages, and that his great hulking barrel of a body is out
of place in these times? What has he in common
with the brisk young life surrounding him ? In the
watches of the night, when the keepers are asleep,
when the birds are on one leg, when even the little
armadillo is quiet, and the monkeys have ceased their
chatter — he, I mean the hippopotamus, and the ele-
phant, and the long-necked giraffe, perhaps may lay
their heads together and have a colloquy about the
great silent antediluvian world which they remember,
where mighty monsters floundered through the ooze,
crocodiles basked on the banks, and dragons darted
out of the caves and waters before men were made to
slay them. We who lived before railways are ante-
diluvians; we must pass away. We are growing
scarcer every day; and old — old — very old relicts

DE JUVENTUTE. 99

of the times when George was still fighting the
Dragon.

Not long since a company of horse-riders paid a
vist to our watering-place. We went to see them, and
I bethought me that young Walter Juvenis, who was
in the place, might like also to witness the perform-
ance. A pantomime is not always amusing to persons
who have attained a certain age ; but a boy at a pan-
tomime is always amused and amusing, and to see his
pleasure is good for most hypochondriacs.

We sent to Walter's mother, requesting that he
might join us, and the kind lady replied that the boy
had already been at the morning performance of the
equestrians, but was most eager to go in the evening
likewise. And go he did; and laughed at all Mr.
Merryman's remarks, though he remembered them
with remarkable accuracy, and insisted upon waiting
to the very end of the fun, and was only induced to
retire just before its conclusion by representations that
the ladies of the party would be incommoded if they
were to wait and undergo the rush and trample of the
crowd round about. When this fact was pointed out
to him, he yielded at once, though with a heavy heart,
his eyes looking longingly toward the ring as we re-
treated out of the booth. We were scarcely clear of
the place when we heard " God save the King" played
by the equestrian band, the signal that all was over.
Our companion entertained us with scraps of the dia-
logue on our way home — precious crumbs of wit
which he had brought away from that feast. He
laughed over them again as we walked under the
stars. He has them now, and takes them out of the

100 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

pocket of his memory, and crunches a bit, and relish-
es it with a sentimental tenderness too, for he is, no
doubt, back at school by this time ; the holidays are
over, and Doctor Birch's young friends have reassem-
bled.

Queer jokes, which caused a thousand simple mouths
to grin ! As the jaded Merry man uttered them to the
old gentleman with the whip, some of the old folks in
the audience, I dare say, indulged in reflections of
their own. There was one joke — I utterly forget it —
but it began with Merryman saying what he had for
dinner. He had mutton for dinner at one o'clock,
after which " he had to come to business.11 And then
came the point. Walter Juvenis, Esq., Eev. Doctor
Birch's, Market Rodborough, if you read this, will you
please send me a line, and let me know what was the
joke Mr. Merryman made about having his dinner ?
You remember well enough. But do I want to know ?
Suppose a boy takes a favorite, long-cherished lump
of cake out of his pocket, and offers you a bite?
Merci ! The fact is, I donH care much about kno wing-
that joke of Mr. Merry man's.

But while he was talking about his dinner, and his
mutton, and his landlord, and his business, I felt a
great interest about Mr. M. in private life— about his
wife, lodgings, earnings, and general history, and I
dare say was forming a picture of those in my mind:
wife cooking the mutton; children waiting for it;
Merryman in his plain clothes, and so forth ; during
which contemplation the joke was uttered and laughed
at, and Mr. M., resuming his professional duties, was
tumbling over head and heels. Do not suppose I am

DE JUVENTUTE. 101

going, sicut est mos, to indulge in moralities about buf-
foons, paint, motley, and mountebanking. . Nay, prime
ministers rehearse their jokes ; Opposition leaders pre-
pare and polish them ; Tabernacle preachers must ar-
range them in their mind before they utter them. All
I mean is, that I would like to know any one of these
performers thoroughly, and out of his uniform : that
preacher, and why in his travels this and that point
struck him ; wherein lies his power of pathos, humor,
eloquence; that minister of state, and what moves
him, and how his private heart is working ; I would
only say that at a certain time of life certain things
cease to interest ; but about some things when we
cease to care, what will be the use of life, sight, hear-
ing? Poems are written, and we cease to admire.
Lady Jones invites us, and we yawn; she ceases to
invite us, and we are resigned. The last time I saw
a ballet at the opera — oh ! it is many years ago — I
fell asleep in the stalls, wagging my head in insane
dreams, and I hope affording amusement to the com-
pany, while the feet of five hundred nymphs were
cutting flicflacs on the stage at a few paces' distance.
Ah ! I remember a different state of things. Credite
posieri. To see those nymphs — gracious powers, how
beautiful they were ! That leering, painted, shriveled,
thin-armed, thick-ankled old thing, cutting dreary ca-
pers, coming thumping down on her board out of time
— that an opera-dancer? Pooh! My dear Walter,
the great difference between my time and yours, who
will enter life some two or three years hence, is that
now the dancing women and singing women are ludi-
crously old, out of time, and out of tune ; the paint is

102 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

so visible, and the dinge and wrinkles of their wretch-
ed old cotton stockings, that I am surprised how any-
body can like to look at them. And as for laughing
at me for falling asleep, I can't understand a man of
sense doing otherwise. In my time, d la bonne heure.
In the reign of George IV., I give you my honor, all
the dancers at the opera were as beautiful as Houris.
Even in William IV.'s time, when I think of Duver-
nay prancing in as the Bayadere — I say it was a vi-
sion of loveliness such as mortal eyes can't see nowa-
days. How well I remember the tune to which she
used to appear! Kaled used to say to the sultan,
" My lord, a troop of those dancing and singging gurls
called Bayaderes approaches," and, to the clash of
cymbals, and the thumping of my heart, in she used
to dance ! There has never been any thiug like it —
never. There never will be — I laugh to scorn old
people who tell me about your Noblet, your Mon-
tessu, your Yestris, your Parisot — pshaw ! the senile
twaddlers ! And the impudence of the young men,
with their music and their dancers of to-day ! I tell
you the women are dreary old creatures. I tell you
one air in an opera is just like another, and they send
all rational creatures to sleep. Ah ! Eonzi de Begnis,
thou lovely one ! Ah ! Caradori, thou smiling angel !
Ah ! Malibran ! Nay, I will come to modern times,
and acknowledge that Lablache was a very good
singer thirty years ago (though Porto was the boy
for me) ; and then we had Ambrogetti, and Curioni,
and Donzelli, a rising young singer.

But what is most certain and lamentable is the
decay of stage beauty since the days of George IY.

DE JUVENTUTE. 103

Think of Sontag ! I remember her in Otello and the
Donna del Lago in '28. I remember being behind
the scenes at the opera (where numbers of us young
fellows of fashion used to go), and seeing Sontag let
her hair fall down over her shoulders previous to her
murder by Donzelli. Young fellows have never seen
beauty like that, heard such a voice, seen such hair,
such eyes. Don't tell me! A man who has been
about town since the reign of George IV., ought he
not to know better than yoxx young lads who have
seen nothing? The deterioration of women is lament-
able ; and the conceit of the young fellows more lam-
entable still, that they won't see this fact, but persist
in thinking their time as good as ours.

Bless me ! when I was a lad, the stage was covered
with angels, who sang, acted, and danced. When I
remember the Adelphi, and the actresses there ; when
I think of Miss Chester, and Miss Love, and Mrs.
Serle at Sadler's Wells, and her forty glorious pupils
— of the Opera and Noblet, and the exquisite young
Taglioni, and Pauline Leroux, and a host more ! One
much-admired being of those days I confess I never
cared for, and that was the chief male dancer — a very
important personage then, with, a bare neck, bare
arms, a tunic, and a hat and feathers, who used to di-
vide the applause with the ladies, and who has now
sunk down a trap-door forever. And this frank ad-
mission ought to show that I am not your mere twad-
dling laudator temporis acti — your old fogy who can
see no good except in his own time.

They say that claret is better nowadays, and cook-
ery much improved since the days of my monarch —

104 KOUNDABOUT PAPEKS.

of George TV. Pastry Cookery is certainly not so
good. I have often eaten half a crown's worth (in-
cluding, I trust, ginger-beer) at our school pastry-
cook's, and that is a proof that the pastry must have
been very good, for could I do as much now? I
passed by the pastry-cook's shop lately, having occa-
sion to visit my old school. It looked a very dingy
old baker's ; misfortunes may have come over him ;
those penny tarts certainly did not look so nice as I
remember them ; but he may have grown careless as
he has grown old (I should judge him to be now
about ninety -six years of age), and his hand may have
lost its cunning.

Not that we were not great epicures. I remember
how we constantly grumbled at the quantity of the
food in our master's house — which, on my conscience,
I believe was excellent and plentiful — and how we
tried once or twice to eat him out of house and home.
At the pastry-cook's we may have overeaten our-
selves (I have admitted half a crown's worth for my
own part, but I don't like to mention the real figure
for fear of perverting the present generation of boys
by my monstrous confession) — we may have eaten
too much, I say. We did; but what then? The
school apothecary was sent for : a couple of small
globules at night, a trifling preparation of senna in
the morning, and we had not to go to school, so that
the draught was an actual pleasure.

For our amusements, besides the games in vogue,
which were pretty much in old times as they are now
(except cricket, par exemple — and I wish the present
youth joy of their bowling, and suppose Armstrong

DE JUVENTUTE. 105

and Whit worth will bowl at them with light field-
pieces next), there were novels — ah! I trouble you
to find such novels in the present day ! Oh Scottish
Chiefs, didn't we weep over you! Oh Mysteries of
Udolfo, didn't I and Briggs minor draw pictures out
of you, as I have said ? This was the sort of thing :
this was the fashion in our day. {Vide page 106.)
Efforts, feeble indeed, but still giving pleasure to us
and our friends. "I say, old boy, draw us Vivaldi
tortured in the Inquisition," or, "Draw us Don Quix-
ote and the windmills, you know," amateurs would
say, to boys who had a love of drawing. Peregrine
Pickle we liked, our fathers admiring it, and telling us
(the sly old boys) it was capital fun; but I think I
was rather bewildered by it, though Koderick Ean-
dom was and remains delightful. I don't remember
having Sterne in the school library, no doubt because
the works of that divine were not considered decent
for young people. Ah ! not against thy genius, Oh
father of Uncle Toby and Trim, would I say a word
in disrespect. But I am thankful to live in times
when men no longer have the temptation to write
so as to call blushes on women's cheeks, and would
shame to whisper wicked allusions to honest boys.
Then, above all, we had Walter Scott, the kindly,
the generous, the pure — the companion of what count-
less delightful hours ; the purveyor of how much hap-
piness; the friend whom we recall as the constant
benefactor of our youth ! How well I remember the
type and the brownish paper of the old duodecimo
Tales of My Landlord! I have never dared to read
the Pirate, and the Bride of Lammermoor, or Kenil-
E2

106

ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

ivorth, from that day to this, because the finale is un-
happy, and people die, and are murdered at the end.
But Ivanhoe, and Quentin Durward! Oh for a half-

&3^^»^

DE JTJVENTUTE. 107

holiday, and a quiet corner, and one of those books
again! Those books, and perhaps those eyes with
which we read them ; and, it may be, the brains be-
hind the eyes ! It may be the tart was good ; but
how fresh the appetite was ! If the gods would give
me the desire of my heart, I should be able to write
a story which boys would relish for the next few
dozen of centuries. The boy-critic loves the story ;
grown up, he loves the author who wrote the story.
Hence the kindly tie is established between writer
and reader, and lasts pretty nearly for life. I meet
people now who don't care for Walter Scott, or the
Arabian Nights ; I am sorry for them, unless they in
their time have found their romancer — their charming
Scheherazade. By-the-way, Walter, when you are
writing, tell me who is the favorite novelist in the
fourth form now ? Have you got any thing so good
and kindly as dear Miss Edge worth's Frank? It used
to belong to a fellow's sisters generally ; but, though
he pretended to despise it, and said, "Oh, stuff for
girls!" he read it; and I think there were one or two
passages which would try my eyes now were I to
meet with the little book.

As for Thomas and Jeremiah (it is only my witty
way of calling Tom and Jerry), I went to the British
Museum the other day on purpose to get it; but
somehow, if you will press the question so closely, on
re-perusal, Tom and Jerry is not so brilliant as I had
supposed it to be. The pictures are just as fine as
ever ; and I shook hands with broad-backed Jerry
Hawthorn and Corinthian Tom with delight after
many years' absence. But the style of the writing, I

108 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

own, was not pleasing to me ; I even thought it a lit-
tle vulgar — well ! well ! other writers have been con-
sidered vulgar — and as a description of the sports and
amusements of London in the ancient times, more cu-
rious than amusing.

But the pictures ! — oh, the pictures are noble still !
First, there is Jerry arriving from the country, in a
green coat and leather gaiters, and being measured for
a fashionable suit at Corinthian House by Corinthian
Tom's tailor. Then away for the career of pleasure
and fashion. The park ! delicious excitement ! The
theatre ! the saloon ! ! the green-room ! ! ! Kapturous
bliss — the opera itself! and then perhaps to Temple
Bar, to knock down a Charley there ! There are Jerry
and Tom, with their tights and little cocked hats, com-
ing from the opera — very much as gentlemen in wait-
ing on royalty are habited now. There they are at
Almack's itself, amidst a crowd of high-bred person-
ages, with the Duke of Clarence himself looking at
them dancing. Now, strange change, they are in Tom
Cribb's parlor, where they don't seem to be a whit less
at home than in fashion's gilded halls : and now they
are at Newgate, seeing the irons knocked off the male-
factors' legs previous to execution. What hardened
ferocity in the countenance of the desperado in yellow
breeches ! What compunction in the face of the gen-
tleman in black (who, I suppose, has been forging), and
who clasps his hands, and listens to the chaplain !
Now we haste away to merrier scenes : to Tattersall's
(ah ! gracious powers ! what a funny fellow that actor
was who performed Dicky Green in that scene at the
play !) ; and now we are at a private party, at which

DE JUVENTUTE.

109

Corinthian Tom is waltzing (and very gracefully, too,
as you must confess) with Corinthian Kate, while Bob
Logic, the Oxonian, is playing on the piano !

"After," the text says, "the Oxonian had played
several pieces of lively music, he requested as a favor
that Kate and his friend Tom would perform a waltz.
Kate, without any hesitation, immediately stood up.
Tom offered his hand to his fascinating partner, and
the dance took place. The plate below conveys a cor-

110 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

rcct representation of the 'gay scene' at that precise
moment. The anxiety of the Oxonian to witness the
attitudes of the elegant pair had nearly put a stop to
their movements. On turning round from the piano-
forte and presenting his comical mug, Kate could
scarcely suppress a laugh."

And no wonder; just look at it now (as I have
copied it to the best of my humble ability), and com-
pare Master Logic's countenance and attitude with the
splendid elegance of Tom ! Now every London man
is weary and blase. There is an enjoyment of life in
these young bucks of 1823 which contrasts strangely
with our feelings of 1860. Here, for instance, is a
specimen of their talk and walk. " ' If,' says Logic —
' if enjoyment is your motto, you may make the most of
an evening at Yauxhall, more than at any other place
in the metropolis. It is all free and easy. Stay as
long as you like, and depart when you think proper.'
'Your description is so flattering,' replied Jerry, 'that
I do not care how soon the time arrives for us to start.'
Logic proposed a ' bit of a stroll1 in order to get rid of
an hour or two, which was immediately accepted by
Tom and Jerry. A turn or two in Bond Street, a stroll
through Piccadilly, a look in at Tattersall's, a ram-
ble through Pall Mall, and a strut on the Corinthian
path, fully occupied the time of our heroes until the
hour for dinner arrived, when a few glasses of Tom's
rich wines soon put them on the qui vice. Yauxhall
was then the object in view, and the Trio started, bent
upon enjoying the pleasures which this place so amply
affords." *

How nobly those inverted commas, those italics.

DE JUVENTUTE. Ill

those capitals, bring out the writer's wit and relieve
the eye! They are as good as jokes, though you
mayn't quite perceive the point. Mark the varieties
of lounge in which the young men indulge — now a
stroll, then a look in, then a ramble, and presently a
strut. When George, Prince of Wales, was twenty, I
have read in an old Magazine, " the Prince's lounge"
was a peculiar manner of walking which the young
bucks imitated. At Windsor George III. had a cat's
path — a sly early walk which the good old king took
in the gray morning before his household was astir.
What was the Corinthian path here recorded? Does
any antiquary know ? And what were the rich wines
which our friends took, and which enabled them to
enjoy Yauxhall? Vauxhall is gone, but the wines
which could occasion such a delightful perversion of
the intellect as to enable it to enjoy ample pleasures
there, what were they?

So the game of life proceeds, until Jerry Hawthorn,
the rustic, is fairly knocked up by all this excitement
and is forced to go home, and the last picture repre-
sents him getting into the coach at the White Horse
Collar, he being one of six inside; while his friends
shake him by the hand; while the sailor mounts on
tin* roof; while the Jews hang round with oranges,
knives, and sealing-wax; while the guard is closing
the door. Where are they now, those sealing-wax
vendors? where are the guards? where are the jolly
teams? where are the coaches? and where the youth
that climbed inside and out of them ; that heard the
merry horn which sounds no more ; that saw the sun
rise over Stonehenge; that rubbed away the bitter

112 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

tears at night after parting as the coach sped on the
journey to school and London ; that looked out with
beating heart as the milestones flew by, for the wel-
come corner where began home and holidays?

It is night now, and here is home. Gathered under
the quiet roof elders and children lie alike at rest. In
the midst of a great peace and calm, the stars look out
from the heavens. The silence is peopled with the
past ; sorrowful remorses for sins and shortcomings —
memories of passionate joys and griefs rise out of their
graves, both now alike calm and sad. Eyes, as I shut
mine, look at me, that have long ceased to shine. The
town and the fair landscape sleep under the starlight,
wreathed in the autumn mists. Twinkling among
the houses a light keeps watch here and there, in what
may be a sick-chamber or two. The clock tolls sweet-
ly in the silent air. Here is night and rest. An aw-
ful sense of thanks makes the heart swell, and the head
bow, as I pass to my room through the sleeping house,
and feel as though a hushed blessing were upon it.

ON A JOKE FROM THE LATE T. HOOD. 113

ON A JOKE I ONCE HEARD FROM THE LATE
THOMAS HOOD.

HE good - natured
reader who has pe-
rused some of these
rambling papers
has long since seen
(if to see has been
worth his trouble)
that the writer be-
longs to the old-
fashioned classes
of this world, loves
to remember very
much more than
to prophesy, and
though he can't
help being carried
onward, and downward, perhaps, on the hill of life,
the swift milestones marking their forties, fifties — how
many tens or lustres shall we say? — he sits under
Time, the white- wigged charioteer, with his back to
the horses and his face to the past, looking at the re-
ceding landscape and the hills fading into the gray
distance. Ah me ! those gray, distant hills were green
once, and here, and covered with smiling people ! As

114 EOUNDABOUT PAPEES.

we came wp the hill there was difficulty, and here and
there a hard pull to be sure, but strength, and spirits,
and all sorts of cheery incident and companionship on
the road ; there were the tough struggles (by Heav-
en's merciful will) overcome, the pauses, the faintings,
the weakness, the lost way, perhaps, the bitter weath-
er, the dreadful partings, the lonely night, the passion-
ate grief — toward these I turn my thoughts as I sit
and think in my hobby-coach under Time, the silver-
wigged charioteer. The young folks in the same car-
riage meanwhile are looking forward. Nothing es-
capes their keen eyes — not a flower at the side of a
cottage garden, nor a bunch of rosy -faced children at
the gate : the landscape is all bright, the air brisk and
jolly, the town yonder looks beautiful, and do you
think they have learned to be difficult about the dish-
es at the inn ?

Now, suppose Paterfamilias on his journey with his
wife and children in the sociable, and he passes an
ordinary brick house on the road with an ordinary
little garden in the front, we will say, and quite an or-
dinary knocker to the door, and as many sashed win-
dows as you please, quite common and square, and
tiles, windows, chimney-pots, quite like others ; or
suppose, in driving over such and such a common, he
sees an ordinary tree, and an ordinary donkey brows-
ing under it, if you like — wife and daughter look at
these objects without the slightest particle of curiosity
or interest. What is a brass knocker to them but a
lion's head or what not ? and a thorn-tree with a pool
beside it but a pool in which a thorn and a jackass are
reflected ?

ON A JOKE FROM THE LATE T. HOOD. 115

But you remember how once upon a time your
heart used to beat, as you beat on that brass knocker,
and whose eyes looked from the window above ? You
remember how by that thorn-tree and pool, where the
geese were performing a prodigious evening concert,
there might be seen, at a certain hour, somebody in a
certain cloak and bonnet, who happened to be coming
from a village yonder, and whose image has flickered
in that pool ? In that pool, near the thorn ? Yes, in
that goose-pool, never mind how long ago, when there
were reflected the images of the geese — and two geese
more. Here, at least, an oldster may have the ad-
vantage of his young fellow-travelers, and so Putney
Heath or the New Road may be invested with a halo
of brightness invisible to them, because it only beams
out of his own soul.

I have been reading the Memorials of Hood by his
children,* and wonder whether the book will have
the same interest for others and for younger people as
for persons of my own age and calling. Books of
travel to any country become interesting to us who
have been there. Men revisit the old school, though
hateful to them, with ever so much kindliness and
sentimental affection. There was the tree under
which the bully licked you ; here the ground where
you had to fag out on holidays, and so forth. In a
word, my dear sir, You are the most interesting sub-
ject to yourself of any that can occupy your worship's
thoughts. I have no doubt a Crimean soldier, read-
ing a history of that siege, and how Jones and the
gallant 99th were ordered to charge or what not,

* Memorials of Thomas Hood. Moxon, 1860. 2 vols.

116 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

thinks, " Ah ! yes, we of the 100th were placed so and
so, I perfectly remember." So with this memorial of
poor Hood, it may have, no doubt, a greater interest
for me than for others, for I was fighting, so to speak,
in a different part of the field, and engaged, a young
subaltern in the Battle of Life, in which Hood fell,
young still, and covered with glory. " The Bridge of
Sighs" was his Corunna, his heights of Abraham —
sickly, weak, wounded, he fell in the full blaze and
fame of that great victory.

What manner of man was the genius who penned
that famous song ? What like was Wolfe, who climbed
and conquered on those famous Heights of Abraham?
We all want to know details regarding men who have
achieved famous feats, whether of war, or wit, or elo-
quence, or endurance, or knowledge. His one or two
happy and heroic actions take a man's name and mem-
ory out of the crowd of names and memories. Hence-
forth he stands eminent. We scan him ; we want to
know all about him ; we walk round and examine
him ; are curious, perhaps, and think are we not as
strong, and tall, and capable as yonder champion ; were
we not bred as well, and could we not endure the win-
ter's cold as well as he ? Or we look up with all our
eyes of admiration ; will find no fault in our hero ; de-
clare his beauty and proportions perfect; his critics
envious detractors, and so forth. Yesterday, before
he performed his feat, he was nobody. Who cared
about his birth-place, his parentage, or the color of his
hair ? To-day, by some single achievement, or by a
series of great actions to which his genius accustoms
us, he is famous, and antiquarians are busy finding

ON A JOKE FROM THE LATE T. HOOD. 117

out under what schoolmaster's ferule he was educated,
where his grandmother was vaccinated, and so forth.
If half a dozen washing-bills of Goldsmith's were to
be found to-morrow, would they not inspire a general
interest, and be printed in a hundred papers ? I light-
ed upon Oliver, not very long since, in an old Town
and Country Magazine, at the Pantheon masquerade
" in an old English habit." Straightway my imagina-
tion ran out to meet him, to look at him, to follow him
about. I forgot the names of scores of fine gentlemen
of the past age who were mentioned besides. We
want to see this man who has amused and charmed
us ; who has been our friend, and given us hours of
pleasant companionship and kindly thought. I pro-
test when I came, in the midst of those names of peo-
ple of fashion, and beaux, and demireps, upon those
names "Sir J.R-yn-lds in a domino; Mr. Cr-d-ck and
Dr. G-ldsm-ih in tivo old English dresses" I had, so to
speak, my heart in my mouth. What, you here, my
dear Sir Joshua ? Ah ! what an honor and privilege
it is to see you ! This is Mr. Goldsmith ? And very
much, sir, the ruff and the slashed doublet become
you ! Oh doctor ! what a pleasure I had and have in
reading the Animated Nature. How did you learn the
secret of writing the decasy liable line, and whence that
sweet wailing note of tenderness that accompanies
your song ? Was Beau Tibbs a real man, and will
you do me the honor of allowing me to sit at your
table at supper? Don't you think you know how he
would have talked? Would you not have liked to
hear him prattle over the Champagne ?

Now Hood is passed away — passed off the earth as

118 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

much as Goldsmith or Horace. The times in which
he lived, and in which very many of us lived and were
young, are changing or changed. I saw Hood once
as a young man, at a dinner which seems almost as
ghostly now as that masquerade at the Pantheon
(1772), of which we were speaking anon. It was at a
dinner of the Literary Fund, in that vast apartment
which is hung round with the portraits of very large
royal freemasons, now unsubstantial ghosts. There,
at the end of the room, was Hood. Some publishers,
I think, were our companions. I quite remember his
pale- face ; he was thin and deaf, and very silent ; he
scarcely opened his lips during the dinner, and he
made one pun. Some gentleman missed his snuff-box,
and Hood said — (the Freemasons' Tavern was kept,
you must remember, by Mr. Cuff in those days, not
by its present proprietors). Well, the box being lost,
and asked for, and Cuff (remember that name) being
the name of the landlord, Hood opened his silent jaws
and said * * * * * Shall I tell you what he said?
It was not a very good pun which the great punster
then made. Choose your favorite pun out of Whims
and Oddities, and fancy that was the joke which he
contributed to the hilarity of our little table.

"Where those asterisks are drawn on the page, you
must know a pause occurred, during which I was en-
gaged with Hood's Own, having been referred to the
book by this life of the author which I have just been
reading. I am not going to dissert on Hood's humor ;
I am not a fair judge. Have I not said elsewhere that
there are one or two wonderfully old gentlemen still
alive who used to give me tips when I was a boy ? I

ON A JOKE FKOM THE LATE T. HOOD. 119

can't be a fair critic about them. I always think of
that sovereign, that rapture of raspberry tarts, which
made my young days happy. Those old sovereign-
contributors may tell stories ever so old, and I shall
laugh ; they may commit murder, and I shall believe
it was justifiable homicide. There is my friend Baggs,
who goes about abusing me, and of course our dear
mutual friends tell me. Abuse away, mon bon I You
were so kind to me when I wanted kindness, that
you may take the change out of that gold now, and
say I am a cannibal and negro, if you will. Ha, Baggs !
Dost thou wince as thou readest this line ? Does guilty
conscience throbbing at thy breast tell thee of whom
the fable is narrated ? Puff out thy wrath, and, when
it has ceased to blow, my Baggs shall be to me as the
Baggs of old — the generous, the gentle, the friendly.

No, on second thoughts, I am determined I will not
repeat that joke which I heard Hood make. He says
he wrote these jokes with such ease that he sent man-
uscripts to the publishers faster than they could ac-
knowledge the receipt thereof. I won't say that they
were all good jokes, or that to read a great book full
of them is a work at present altogether jocular. "Writ-
ing to a friend respecting some memoir of him which
had been published, Hood says, u You will judge how
well the author knows me when he says my mind is
rather serious than comic." At the time when he
wrote these words he evidently undervalued his own
serious power, and thought that in punning and broad-
grinning lay his chief strength. Is not there some-
thing touching in that simplicity and humility of
faith? "To make laugh is my calling," says he; "I

120 EOUNDABOUT PAPEKS.

must jump, I must grin, I must fumble, I must turn
language head over heels, and leap through grammar;"
and he goes to his work humbly and courageously,
and what he has to do that does he with all his might,
through sickness, through sorrow, through exile, pov-
erty, fever, depression — there he is, always ready to
his work, and with a jewel of genius in his pocket !
Why, when he laid down his puns and pranks, put
the motley off, and spoke out of his heart, all England
and America listened with tears and wonder ! Other
men have delusions of conceit, and fancy themselves
greater than they are, and that the world slights them.
Have we not heard how Liston always thought he
ought to play Hamlet? Here is a man with a power
to touch the heart almost unequaled, and he passes
days and years in writing "Young Ben he was a nice
young man," and so forth. To say truth, I have been
reading in a book of Hood's Own until I am perfectly
angry. "You great man, you good man, you true
genius and poet," I cry out, as I turn page after page,
" do, do make no more of these jokes, but be yourself,
and take your station."

When Hood was on his death-bed, Sir Eobert Peel,
who only knew of his illness, not of his imminent
danger, wrote to him a noble and touching letter, an-
nouncing that a pension was conferred on him :

"I am more than repaid," writes Peel, "by the personal satisfac-
tion which I have had in doing that for which you return me warm
and characteristic acknowledgments.

"You perhaps think that you are known to one, with such multi-
farious occupations as myself, merely by general reputation as an au-
thor ; but I assure you that there can be little which you have writ-
ten and acknowledged which I have not read, and that there are few

ON A JOKE FROM THE LATE T. HOOD. 121

who can appreciate and admire more than myself the good sense and
good feeling which have taught you to infuse so much fun and mer-
riment into writings correcting folly and exposing absurdities, and yet
never trespassing beyond those limits within which wit and facetious-
ness are not very often confined. You may write on with the con-
sciousness of independence, as free and unfettered as if no communi-
cation had ever passed between us. I am not conferring a private ob-
ligation upon you, but am fulfilling the intentions of the Legislature,
which has placed at the disposal of the crown a certain sum (miser-
able, indeed, in amount) to be applied to the recognition of public
claims on the bounty of the crown. If you will review the names of
those whose claims have been admitted on account of their literary or
scientific eminence, you will find an ample confirmation of the truth
of my statement.

" One return, indeed, I shall ask of you — that you will give me the
opportunity of making your personal acquaintance."

And Hood, writing to a friend, inclosing a copy of
Peel's letter, says, " Sir E. Peel came from Burleigh on
Tuesday night, and went down to Brighton on Satur-
day. If he had written by post, I should not have
had it till to-day. So he sent his servant with the in-
closed on Saturday night ; another mark of considerate
attention." He is frightfully unwell, he continues :
his wife says he looks quite green ; but, ill as he is,
poor fellow, "his well is not dry. He has pumped
out a sheet of Christmas fun, is drawing some cuts,
and shall write a sheet more of his novel."

Oh sad, marvelous picture of courage, of honesty,
of patient endurance, of duty struggling against pain !
How noble Peel's figure is standing by that sick-bed !
how generous his words, how dignified and sincere his
compassion ! And the poor dying man, with a heart
full of natural gratitude toward his noble benefactor,
must turn to him and say, " If it be well to be remem-

F

122 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

bered by a minister, it is better still not to be forgot-
ten by him in a ' hurly Burleigh !' " Can you laugh ?
Is not the joke horribly pathetic from the poor dying-
lips? As dying Kobin Hood must fire a last shot
with his bow — as one reads of Catholics on their death-
beds putting on a Capuchin dress to go out of the
world — here is poor Hood at his last hour putting on
his ghastly motley, and uttering one joke more.

He dies, however, in dearest love and peace with
his children, wife, friends ; to the former especially his
whole life had been devoted, and every day showed
his fidelity, simplicity, and affection. In going through
the record of his most pure, modest, honorable life,
and living along with him, you come to trust him
thoroughly, and feel that here is a most loyal, affec-
tionate, and upright soul, with whom you have been
brought into communion. Can we say as much of all
lives of all men of letters ? Here is one at least with-
out guile, without pretension, without scheming, of a
pure life, to his family and little modest circle of
friends tenderly devoted.

And what a hard work, and what a slender reward !
In the little domestic details with which the book
abounds, what a simple life is shown to us ! The
most simple little pleasures and amusements delight
and occupy him. You have revels on shrimps ; the
good wife making the pie ; details about the maid, and
criticisms on her conduct; wonderful tricks played
with the plum-pudding — all the pleasures centring
round the little humble home. One of the first men
of his time, he is appointed editor of a magazine at a
salary of £300 per annum, signs himself exultingly

ON A JOKE FROM THE LATE T. HOOD. 123

"Ed. N". M. M.," and the family rejoice over the in-
come as over a fortune. He goes to a Greenwich din-
ner— what a feast and rejoicing afterward !

"Well, we drank 'the Boz' with a delectable clatter, which drew
from him a good warm-hearted speech. . . . He looked very
well, and had a younger brother along with him. . . . Then we
had songs. Barham chanted a Robin Hood ballad, and Cruikshank

sang a burlesque ballad of Lord II ; and somebody, unknown to

me, gave a capital imitation of a French showman. Then we toasted
Mrs. Boz, and the Chairman, and Vice, and the Traditional Priest
sang the ■ Deep, deep sea,' in his deep, deep voice ; and then we drank
to Procter, who wrote the said song ; also Sir J. Wilson's good health,
and Cruikshank's, and Ainsworth's ; and a Manchester friend of the
latter sang a Manchester ditty, so full of trading stuff that it really
seemed to have been not composed, but manufactured. Jerdan, as
Jerdanish as usual on such occasions — you know how paradoxically
he is quite at home in dining out. As to myself, I had to make my
second maiden speech, for Mr. Monckton Milnes proposed my health in
terms my modesty might allow me to repeat to you, but my memory
won't. However, I ascribed the toast to my notoriously bad health,
and assured them that their wishes had already improved it — that I
felt a brisker circulation — a more genial warmth about the heart, and
explained that a certain trembling of my hand was not from palsy, or
my old ague, but an inclination in my hand to shake itself with every
one present. Whereupon I had to go through the friendly ceremony
with as many of the company as were within reach, besides a few
more who came express from the other end of the table. Very grati-
fying, wasn't it ? though I can not go quite so far as Jane, who wants
me to have that hand chopped off, bottled, and preserved in spirits.
She was sitting up for me very anxiously, as usual when I go out, be-
cause I am so domestic and steady, and was down at the door before
I could ring at the gate, to which Boz kindly sent me in his own car-
riage. Poor girl ! what would she do if she had a wild husband in-
stead of a tame one ?"

And the poor anxious wife is sitting up, and fondles
the hand which has been shaken by so many illustri-
ous men ! The little feast dates back only eighteen

124 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

years, and yet somehow it seems as distant as a din-
ner at Mr. Thrale's, or a meeting at Will's.

Poor little gleam of sunshine I very little good cheer
enlivens that sad simple life. We have the triumph
of the magazine ; then a new magazine projected and
produced; then illness and the last scene, and the
kind Peel by the dying man's bedside, speaking noble
words of respect and sympathy, and soothing the last
throbs of the tender honest heart.

I like, I say, Hood's life even better than his books,
and I wish, with all my heart, Monsieur et cher confrere,
the same could be said for both of us when the ink-
stream of our life hath ceased to run. Yes; if I drop
first, dear Baggs, I trust you may find reason to mod-
ify some of the unfavorable views of my character
which you are freely imparting to our mutual friends.
What ought to be the literary man's point of honor
nowadays ? Suppose, friendly reader, you are one of
the craft, what legacy would you like to leave to your
children? First of all (and by Heaven's gracious
help) you would pray and strive to give them such
an endowment of love as should last certainly for all
their lives, and perhaps be transmitted to their chil-
dren. You would (by the same aid and blessing) keep
your honor pure, and transmit a name unstained to
those who have a right to bear it. You would —
though this faculty of giving is one of the easiest of
the literary man's qualities — you would, out of your
earnings, small or great, be able to help a poor broth-
er in need, to dress his wounds, and, if it were but two-
pence, to give him succor. Is the money which the
noble Macaulay gave to the poor lost to his family ?

ON A JOKE FKOM THE LATE T. HOOD. 125

God forbid. To the loving hearts of his kindred is it
not rather the most precious part of their inheritance ?
It was invested in love and righteous doing, and it
bears interest in heaven. You will, if letters be your
vocation, find saving harder than giving and spending.
To save be your endeavor too against the night's com-
ing when no man may work ; when the arm is weary
with the long day's labor; when the brain perhaps
grows dark ; when the old, who can labor no more,
want warmth and rest, and the young ones call ftp
supper.

I copied the little galley-slave who is made to figure
in the initial letter of this paper from a quaint old sil-
ver spoon which we purchased in a curiosity-shop at
the Hague. It is one of the gift-spoons so common in
Holland, and which have multiplied so astonishingly
of late years at our dealers' in old silver- ware. Along
the stem of the spoon are written the words, " Anno
1609, Bin ich aldus ghehhdt gheghaen" — "In the year
1609 I went thus, clad." The good Dutchman was
released from his Algerine captivity (I imagine his
figure looks like that of a slave among the Moors),
and in his thank-offering to some godchild at home he
thus piously records his escape.

Was not poor Cervantes also a captive among the
Moors ? Did not Fielding, and Goldsmith, and Smol-
lett too, die at the chain as well as poor Hood?
Think of Fielding going on board his wretched ship
in the Thames, with scarce a hand to bid him fare-
well ; of brave Tobias Smollett, and his life, how hard,
and how poorly rewarded; of Goldsmith, and the

126 EOUNDABOUT PAPEKS.

physician whispering, " Have you something on your
mind ?" and the wild, dying eyes answering Yes. No-
tice how Boswell speaks of Goldsmith, and the splen-
did contempt with which he regards him. Eead Haw-
kins on Fielding, and the scorn with which Dandy
Walpole and Bishop Hurd speak of him. Galley-
slaves doomed to tug the oar and wear the chain,
while my lords and dandies take their pleasure, and
hear fine music and disport with fine ladies in the
cabin !

But stay. "Was there any cause for this scorn? Had
some of these great men weaknesses which gave infe-
riors advantage over them ? Men of letters can not
lay their hands on their hearts and say, " No, the fault
was Fortune's and the indifferent world's, not Gold-
smith's nor Fielding's." There was no reason why
Oliver should always be thriftless ; why Fielding and
Steele should sponge upon their friends; why Sterne
should make love to his neighbors' wives. Swift, for
a long time, was as poor as any wag that ever laughed,
but he owed no penny to his neighbors; Addison,
when he wore his most threadbare coat, could hold
his head up and maintain his dignity; and I dare
vouch neither of those gentlemen, when they were
ever so poor, asked any man alive to pity their con-
dition, and have a regard to the weaknesses incidental
to the literary profession. Galley-slave, forsooth ! If
you are sent to prison for some error for which the
law awards that sort of laborious seclusion, so much
the more shame for you. If you are chained to the
oar a prisoner of war, like Cervantes, you have the
pain, but not the shame, and the friendly compassion

ON A JOKE FROM THE LATE T. HOOD. 127

of mankind to reward you. Galley-slaves, indeed!
What man has not his oar to pull? There is that
wonderful old stroke-oar in the Queen's galley. How
many years has he pulled ? Day and night, in rough
water or smooth, with what invincible vigor and sur-
prising gayety he plies his arms. There is in the same
Galere Capitaine, that well-known, trim figure, the bow
oar ; how he tugs, and with what a will ! How both
of them have been abused in their time ! Take the
Lawyer's galley, and that dauntless octogenarian in
command ; when has he ever complained or repined
about his slavery ? There is the Priest's galley — black
and lawn sails — do any mariners out of Thames work
harder? When lawyer, and statesman, and divine,
and writer are snug in bed, there is a ring at the poor
doctor's bell. Forth he must go, in rheumatism or
snow ; a galley-slave bearing his galley-pots to quench
the flames of fever, to succor mothers and young chil-
dren in their hour of peril, and, as gently and sooth-
ingly as may be, to carry the hopeless patient over to
the silent shore. And have we not just read of the
actions of the Queen's galleys, and their brave crews
in the Chinese waters ? Men not more worthy of hu-
man renown and honor to-day in their victory than
last year in their glorious hour of disaster. So with
stout hearts may we ply the oar, mess-mates all, till
the voyage is over and the Harbor of Rest is found.

128

ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

ROUND ABOUT THE CHRISTMAS-TREE.

i!

The kindly Christmas-tree, from which I trust every
gentle reader has pulled a bonbon or two, is yet all

ROUND ABOUT THE CHRISTMAS-TREE. 129

aflame while I am writing, and sparkles with the sweet
fruits of its season. You young ladies, may you have
plucked pretty giftlings from it ; and out of the crack-
er sugar-plum which you have split with the captain
or the sweet young curate may you have read one qf
those delicious conundrums which the confectioners
introduce into the sweetmeats, and which apply to the
cunning passion^>f love. Those riddles are to be read
at your age, when I dare say they are amusing. As
for Dolly, Merry, and Bell, who are standing at the
tree, they don't care about the love-riddle part, but
understand the sweet-almond portion very well. They
are four, five, six years old. Patience, little people !
A dozen merry Christmases more, and you will be
reading those wonderful love conundrums too. As
for us elderly folks, we watch the babies at their sport,
and the young people pulling at the branches ; and
instead of finding bonbons or sweeties in the packets
which we pluck off the boughs, we find inclosed Mr.
Carnifex's review of the quarter's meat ; Mr. Sartor's
compliments, and little statement for self and the young
gentlemen ; and Madame de Sainte-Crinoline's respects
to the young ladies, who incloses her account, and will
send on Saturday, please ; or we stretch our hand out
to the educational branch of the Christmas-tree, and
there find a lively and amusing article from the Rev.
Henry Holyshade, containing our dear Tommy's ex-
ceedingly moderate account for the last term's school
expenses.

The tree yet sparkles, I say. I am writing on the
day before Twelfth Day, if you must know ; but al-
ready ever so many of the fruits have been pulled,

F2

130 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

and the Christmas lights have gone out. Bobby Mis-
eltow, who has been staying with us for a week (and
who has been sleeping mysteriously in the bath-room),
comes to say he is going away to spend the rest of the
holidays with his grandmother, and I brush away the
manly tear of regret as I part with the dear child.
" Well, Bob, good-by, since you will go. Compliments
to grandmama. Thank her for the turkey. Here's — "
(A slight 'pecuniary transaction takes place at this junc-
ture, and Bob nods and winks, and puts his hand in his
waistcoat pocket.) u You have had a pleasant" week?"

Bob. "Haven't I!" (And exit, anxious to know the
amount of the coin which has just changed hands.)

He is gone, and as the dear boy vanishes through
the door (behind which I see him perfectly), I too cast
up a little account of our past Christmas week. When
Bob's holidays are over, and the printer has sent me
back this manuscript, I know Christmas will be an old
story. All the fruit will be off the Christmas-tree
then ; the crackers will have cracked off; the almonds
will have been crunched, and the sweet-bitter riddles
will have been read ; the lights will have perished off
the dark-green boughs ; the toys growing on them
will have been distributed, fought for, cherished, neg-
lected, broken. Ferdinand and Fidelia will each keep
out of it (be still, my gushing heart !) the remembrance
of a riddle read together, of a double-almond munch-
ed together, and the moiety of an exploded cracker.
. . . The maids, I say, will have taken down all
that holly stuff and nonsense about the clocks, lamps,
and looking-glasses, the dear boys will be back at
school, fondly thinking of the pantomime-fairies whom

ROUND ABOUT THE CHRISTMAS-TREE. 131

they have seen ; whose gaudy gossamer wings are bat-
tered by this time, and whose pink cotton (or silk is
it?) lower extremities are all dingy and dusty. Yet
but a few days, Bob, and flakes of paint will have
cracked off the fairy flower-bowers, and the revolving
temples of adamantine lustre will be as shabby as the
city of Pekin. When you read this, will Clown still
be going on losing his tongue out of his mouth, and
saying, "How are you to-morrow?" To-morrow, in-
deed ! He must be almost ashamed of himself (if that
cheek is still capable of the blush of shame) for asking
the absurd question. To-morrow, indeed! To-mor-
row the diffugient snows will give place to Spring ;
the snow-drops will lift their heads ; Lady-day may be
expected, and the pecuniary duties peculiar to that
feast ; in place of bonbons, trees will have an eruption
of light-green knobs ; the whitebait season will bloom
. . . as if one need go on describing these vernal
phenomena, when Christmas is still here, though end-
ing, and the subject of my discourse ! We have all
admired the illustrated papers, and noted how bois-
terously jolly they become at Christmas-time. What
wassail bowls, robin - redbreasts, waits, snow-land-
scapes, bursts of Christmas song ! And then to think
that these festivities are prepared months before —
that these Christmas pieces are prophetic ! How kind
of artists and poets to devise the festivities before-
hand, and serve them pat at the proper time ! We
ought to be grateful to them, as to the cook who gets
up at midnight and sets the pudding a-boiling which
is to feast us at six o'clock. I often think with grati-
tude of the famous Mr. Nelson Lee — the author of I

132 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

don't know how many hundred glorious pantomimes
— walking by the summer wave at Margate, or Brigh-
ton perhaps, revolving in his mind the idea of some
new gorgeous spectacle of faery which the winter
shall see complete. He is like cook at midnight (si
parva licet). He watches and thinks. He pounds
the sparkling sugar of benevolence, the plums of fan-
cy, the sweetmeats of fun, the figs of — well, the figs
of fairy fiction, let us say, and pops the whole in the
seething caldron of imagination, and at due season
serves up the Pantomime.

Yery few men in the course of nature can expect to
see all the pantomimes in one season, but I hope to
the end of my life I shall never forego reading about
them in that delicious sheet of The Times which ap-
pears on the morning after Boxing-day. Perhaps
reading is even better than seeing. The best way, I
think, is to say you are ill, lie in bed, and have the pa-
per for two hours, reading all the way down from Dru-
ry Lane to the Britannia at Hoxton. Bob and I went
to two pantomimes. One was at the Theatre of Fan-
cy, and the other was at the Fairy Opera, and I don't
know which we liked the best.

At the Fancy we saw Harlequin Hamlet, or Daddy's
Ghost and Nunhfs Pison, which is all very well ; but,
gentlemen, if you don't respect Shakspeare, to whom
will you be civil ? The palace and ramparts of Elsi-
nore by moon an^d snow-light is one of Louth erbourg's
finest efforts. The banqueting-hall of the palace is il-
luminated; the peaks and gables glitter with the
snow ; the sentinels march blowing their fingers with
the cold — the freezing of the nose of one of them is

ROUND ABOUT THE CHRISTMAS-TREE. 133

very neatly and dextrously arranged ; the snow-storm
rises ; the winds howl awfully along the battlements ;
the waves come curling, leaping, foaming to shore.
Hamlet's umbrella is whirled away in the storm. He
and his two friends stamp on each other's toes to keep
them warm. The storm-spirits rise in the air, and
are whirled howling round the palace and therrocks.
My eyes! what tiles and chimney-pots fly hurtling
through the air! As the storm reaches its height
(here the wind-instruments come in with prodigious
effect, and' I compliment Mr. Brumby and the violon-
cellos)— as the snow-storm rises (queek, queek, queek,
go the fiddles, and then thrumpty/thrump comes a piz-
zicato movement in Bob Major, which sends a shiver
into your very boot-soles), the thunder-clouds deepen
(bong, bong, bong, from the violoncellos). The fork-
ed lightning quivers through the clouds in a zigzag
scream of violins — and look! look! look! as the
frothing, roaring waves come rushing up the battle-
ments and over the reeling parapet, each hissing wave
becomes a ghost, sends the gun-carriages rolling over
the platform, and plunges howling into the water
again.

Hamlet's mother comes on to the battlements to
look for her son. The storm whips her umbrella out
of her hands, and she retires screaming in pattens.

The cabs on the stand in the great market-place at
Elsinore are seen to drive off, and several people are
drowned. The gas-lamps along the street are wrench-
ed from their foundations, and shoot through the troub-
led air. Whish ! rush ! hish ! how the rain roars and
pours ! The darkness becomes awful, always deepen-

134 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

ed by the power of the music; and see! in the midst of
a rush, and whirl, and scream of spirits of air and wave,
what is that ghastly figure moving hither? It becomes
bigger, bigger, as it advances down the platform —
more ghastly, more horrible, enormous ! It is as tall
as the whole stage. It seems to be advancing on the
stalls and pit, and the whole house screams with ter-
ror as the Ghost of the late Hamlet comes in and
begins to speak. Several people faint, and the light-
fingered gentry pick pockets furiously in the darkness.

In the pitchy darkness, this awful figure throwing
his eyes about, the gas in the boxes shuddering out of
sight, and the wind-instruments bugling the most hor-
rible wails, the boldest spectator must have felt fright-
ened. But hark ! what is that silver shimmer of the
fiddles ! Is it — can it be — the gray dawn peeping in
the stormy east? The ghost's eyes look blankly to-
ward it, and roll a ghastly agony. Quicker, quicker
ply the violins of Phoebus Apollo. Eedder, redder
grow the orient clouds. Cockadoodloodloo ! crows
that great cock which has just come out on the roof
of the palace. And now the round sun himself pops
up from behind the waves of night. Where is the
ghost? He is gone ! Purple shadows of morn " slant
o'er the snowy sward," the city wakes up in life and
sunshine, and we confess we are very much relieved
at the disappearance of the ghost. "We don't like
those dark scenes in pantomimes.

After the usual business, that Ophelia should be
turned into Columbine was to be expected ; but I con-
fess I was a little shocked when Hamlet's mother be-
came Pantaloon, and was instantly knocked down by

ROUND ABOUT THE CHRISTMAS-TREE. 135

Clown Claudius. Grimaldi is getting a little old now,
but for real humor there are few clowns like him.
Mr. Shuter, as the grave-digger, was chaste and comic,
as he always is, and the scene-painters surpassed them-
selves.

Harlequin Conqueror and the Field of Hastings, at the
other house, is very pleasant too. The irascible Will-
iam is acted with very great vigor by Snoxall, and
the battle of Hastings is a good piece of burlesque.
Some trifling liberties are taken with history, but what
liberties will not the merry genius of pantomime per-
mit himself? At the battle of Hastings, William is
on the point of being defeated by the Sussex volun-
teers, very elegantly led by the always pretty Miss
Waddy (as Haco Sharpshooter), when a shot from the
Normans kills Harold. The fairy Edith hereupon
comes forward, and finds his body, which straightway
leaps up a live harlequin, while the Conqueror makes
an excellent clown, and the Archbishop of Bayeux a
diverting pantaloon, etc., etc., etc.

Perhaps these are not the pantomimes we really
saw ; but one description will do as well as another.
The plots, you see, are a little intricate and difficult to
understand in pantomimes, and I may have mixed up
one with another. That I was at the theatre on Box-
ing-night is certain, but the pit was so full that I could
only see fairy legs glittering in the distance as I stood
at the door. And if I was badly off, I think there was
a young gentleman behind me worse off still. I own
that he has good reason (though others have not) to
speak ill of me behind my back, and hereby beg his
pardon.

136 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

Likewise to the gentleman who picked up a party
in Piccadilly, who had slipped and fallen in the snow,
and was there on his back uttering energetic expres-
sions; that party begs to offer thanks, and compli-
ments of the season.

Bob's behavior on New- Year's day, I can assure Dr.
Holyshade, was highly creditable to the boy. He had
expressed a determination to partake of every dish
which was put on the table ; but after soup, fish, roast
beef, and roast goose, he retired from active business
until the pudding and mince-pies made their appear-
ance, of which he partook liberally, but not too freely.
And he greatly advanced in my good opinion by prais-
ing the punch, which was of my own manufacture,
and which some gentlemen present (Mr. O'M — g — n,
among others) pronounced to be too weak. Too weak !
A bottle of rum, a bottle of Madeira, half a bottle of
brandy, and two bottles and a half of water — can this
mixture be said to be too weak for any mortal ? Our
young friend amused the company during the even-
ing by exhibiting a two-shilling magic lantern which
he had purchased, and likewise by singing "Sally,
come up !" a quaint but rather monotonous melody,
which I am told is sung by the poor negro on the
banks of the broad Mississip.

"What other enjoyments did we proffer for the child's
amusement during the Christmas week? A great
philosopher was giving a lecture to young folks at the
British Institution. But when this diversion was pro-
posed to our young friend Bob, he said, "Lecture?
No, thank you. Not as I knows on," and made sar-
castic signals on his nose. Perhaps he is of Dr. John-

ROUND ABOUT THE CHRISTMAS-TREE. 137

son's opinion about lectures : " Lectures, sir ! what man
would go to hear that imperfectly at a lecture which
he can read at leisure in a book?" /never went, of
my own choice, to a lecture, that I can vow. As for
sermons, they are different; I delight in them, and
they can not, of course, be too long.

Well, we partook of yet other Christmas delights
besides pantomine, pudding, and pie. One glorious,
one delightful, one most unlucky and pleasant day, we
drove in a brougham, with a famous horse, which car-
ried us more quickly and briskly than any of your
vulgar railways over Battersea Bridge, on which the
horse's hoofs rung as if it had been iron ; through sub-
urban villages, plum-caked with snow ; under a lead-
en sky, in which the sun hung like a red-hot warm-
ing-pan ; by pond after pond, where not only men and
boys, but scores after scores of women and girls, were
sliding, and roaring, and clapping their lean old sides
with laughter as they tumbled down, and their hob-
nailed shoes flew up in the air ; the air frosty with a
lilac haze, through which villas, and commons, and
churches, and plantations glimmered. We drive up
the hill, Bob and I ; we make the last two miles in
eleven minutes ; we pass that poor, armless man who
sits there in the cold, following you with his eyes. I
don't give any thing, and Bob looks disappointed.
We are set down neatly at the gate, and a horse-hold-
er opens the brougham door, I don't give any thing ;
again disappointment on Bob's part. I pay a shilling
apiece, and we enter into the glorious building, which
is decorated for Christmas, and straightway forgetful-
ness on Bob's part of every thing but that magnificent

138 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

scene. The enormous edifice is all decorated for Bob
and Christmas. The stalls, the columns, the fount-
ains, courts, statues, splendors, are all crowned for
Christmas. The delicious negro is singing his Ala-
bama choruses for Christmas and Bob. He has scarce-
ly done, when Tootarootatoo ! Mr. Punch is perform-
ing his surprising actions, and hanging the beadle.
The stalls are decorated. The refreshment tables are
piled with good things ; at many fountains " Mulled
Claret" is written up in appetizing capitals. " Mull-
ed claret — oh, jolly! How cold it is!" says Bob; I
pass on. " It's only three o'clock," says Bob. " No,
only three," I say, meekly. " We dine at seven," sighs
Bob, "and it's so-o-o coo-old." I still would take no
hints. No claret, no refreshment, no sandwiches, no
sausage-rolls for Bob. At last I am obliged to tell
him all. Just before we left home, a little Christmas
bill popped in at the door and emptied my purse at
the threshold. I forgot all about the transaction, and
had to borrow half a crown from John Coachman to
pay for our entrance into the palace of delight. Now
you see, Bob, why I could not treat you on that sec-
ond of January when we drove to the palace togeth-
er ; when the girls and boys were sliding on the ponds
at Dulwich ; when the darkling river was full of float-
ing ice, and the sun was like a warming-pan in the
leaden sky.

One more Christmas sight we had, of course, and
that sight I think I like as well as Bob himself at
Christmas, and at all seasons. We went to a certain
garden of delight, where, whatever your cares are, I
think you can manage to forget some of them, and

ROUND ABOUT THE CHRISTMAS-TREE. 139

muse, and be not unhappy; to a garden beginning
with a Z, which is as lively as Noah's ark ; where the
fox has brought his brush, and the cock has brought
his comb, and the elephant has brought his trunk, and
the kangaroo has brought his bag, and the condor his
old white wig and black satin hood. On this day it
was so cold that the white bears winked their pink
eyes as they plapped up and down by their pool, and
seemed to say, " Aha ! this weather reminds us of dear
home !" " Cold ! bah ! I have got such a warm coat,"
says Brother Bruin, " I don't mind ;" and he laughs
on his pole, and clucks down a bun. The squealing
hyenas gnashed their teeth and laughed at us quite
refreshingly at their window ; and, cold as it was, Ti-
ger, Tiger, burning bright, glared at us red-hot through
his bars, and snorted blasts of hell. The woolly cam-
el leered at us quite kindly as he paced round his ring
on his silent pads. We went to our favorite places.
Our dear wambat came up, and had himself scratched
very affably. Our fellow-creatures in the monkey-
room held out their little black hands, and piteously
asked us for Christmas alms. Those darling alliga-
tors on their rock winked at us in the most friendly
way. The solemn eagles sat alone, and scowled at us
from their peaks, while little Tom Eatel tumbled over
head and heels for us in his usual diverting manner.
If I have cares in my mind, I come to the Zoo, and
fancy they don't pass the gate. I recognize my
friends, my enemies, in countless cages. I entertained
the eagle, the vulture, the old billy-goat, and the black-
pated, crimson-necked, blear-eyed, baggy, hook-beak-
ed, old marabou stork yesterday at dinner ; and when

140 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

Bob's aunt came to tea in the evening, and asked him
what he had seen, he stepped up to her gravely, and
said,

''First I saw the white bear, then I saw the black,
Then I saw the camel with a hump upon his back.

Child era I Then I saw the camel with a hump upon his back !
Then I saw the gray wolf, with mutton in his maw ;
Then I saw the wambat waddle in the straw ;
Then I saw the elephant with his waving trunk,
Then I saw the monkeys — mercy, how unpleasantly
they — smelt !"

There. No one can beat that piece of wit, can he,
Bob ? And so it is all over ; but we had a jolly time
while you were with us, hadn't we ? Present my re-
spects to the doctor; and I hope, my boy, we may
spend another merry Christmas next year.

ON A CHALK-MARK ON THE DOOR.

141

ON A CHALK-MARK ON THE DOOR.

N the door-post
of the house of
a friend of mine,
a few inches
above the lock,
is a little chalk- •
mark, which
some sportive
boy in passing-
has probably
scratched on the
pillar. The door-
steps, the lock,
handle, etc., are
kept decently
enough ; but this
chalk - mark, I
suppose some three inches out of the housemaid's beat,
has already been on the door for more than a fort-
night, and I wonder whether it will be there while
this paper is being written, while it is at the printer's,
and, in fine, until the month passes over ? I wonder
whether the servants in that house will read these re-
marks about the chalk -mark? That the Cornhill
Magazine is taken in in that house I know. In fact,

142 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

I have seen it there. In fact, I have read it there. In
fact, I have written it there. In a word, the house to
which I allude is mine — the "editor's private resi-
dence," to which, in spite of prayers, entreaties, com-
mands, and threats, authors, and ladies especially, will
send their communications, although they won't un-
derstand that they injure their own interests by so do-
ing ; for how is a man who has his own work to do,
his own exquisite inventions to form and perfect —
Maria to rescue from the unprincipled earl — the atro-
cious general to confound in his own machinations —
the angelic dean to promote to a bishopric, and so
forth — -how is a man to do all this under a hundred
interruptions, and keep his nerves and temper in that
just and equable state in which they ought to be
when he comes to assume the critical office ? As you
will send here, ladies, I must tell you you have a much
worse chance than if you forward your valuable arti-
cles to Cornhill. Here your papers arrive, at dinner-
time, we will say. Do you suppose that is a pleasant
period, and that we are to criticise you between the
ovum and malum, between the soup and the dessert ?
I have touched, I think, on this subject before. I say'
again, if you want real justice shown you, don't send
your papers to the private residence. At home, for
instance, yesterday, having given strict orders that I
was to receive nobody, " except on business," do you
suppose a smiling young Scottish gentleman, who
forced himself into my study, and there announced
himself as agent of a Cattle-food Company, was re-
ceived with pleasure? There, as I sat in my arm-
chair, suppose he had proposed to draw a couple of

ON A CHALK-MARK ON THE DOOR. 143

my teeth, would I have been pleased ? I could have
throttled that agent. I dare say the whole of that
day's work will be found tinged with a ferocious mis-
anthropy, occasioned by my clever young friend's in-
trusion. Cattle-food, indeed ! As if beans, oats, warm
mashes, and a ball, are to be pushed down a man's
throat just as he is meditating on the great social prob-
lem, or (for I think it was my epic I was going to
touch up) just as he was about to soar to the height
of the empyrean !

Having got my cattle-agent out of the door, I re-
sume my consideration of that little mark on the door-
post, which is scored up as the text of the present lit-
tle sermon, and which I hope will relate, not to chalk,
nor to any of its special uses or abuses (such as milk,
neckpowder, and the like), but to servants. Surely
ours might remove that unseemly little mark ? Sup-
pose it were on my coat, might I not request its re-
moval ? I remember, when I was at school, a little
careless boy, upon whose forehead an ink-mark re-
mained, and was perfectly recognizable for three weeks
after its first appearance. May I take any notice of
this chalk-stain on the forehead of my house ? Whose
business is it to wash that forehead? and ought I to
fetch a brush and a little hot water, and wash it off
myself?

Yes. But that spot removed, why not come down
at six, and wash the door-steps ? I dare say the early
rising and exercise would do me a great deal of good.
The house-maid, in that case, might lie in bed a little
later, and have her tea and the morning paper brought
to her in bed ; then, of course, Thomas would expect

144 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

to be helped about the boots and knives ; cook about
the sauce-pans, dishes, and what not ; the lady's-maid
would want somebody to take the curl-papers out of
her hair, and get her bath ready. You should have a
set of servants for the servants, and these under-serv-
ants should have slaves to wait on them. The king
commands the first lord in waiting to desire the sec-
ond lord to intimate to the gentleman usher to request
the page of the antechamber to entreat the groom of
the stairs to implore John to ask the captain of the
buttons to desire the maid of the still-room to beg the
housekeeper to give out a few more lumps of sugar,
as his majesty has none for his coffee, which probably
is getting cold during the negotiation. In our little
Brentfords we are all kings more or less. There are
orders, gradations, hierarchies every where. In your
house and mine there are mysteries unknown to us.
I am not going into the horrid question of " followers."
I don't mean cousins from the country, love-stricken
policemen, or gentlemen in mufti from Knightsbridge
Barracks ; but people who have an occult right on the
premises ; the uncovenanted servants of the house ;
gray women who are seen at evening with baskets
flitting about area-railings ; dingy shawls which drop
you furtive courtesies in your neighborhood ; demure
little Jacks, who start up from behind boxes in the
pantry. These outsiders wear Thomas's crest and liv-
ery, and call him "Sir;" those silent women address
the female servants as " Mum," and courtesy before
them, squaring their arms over their wretched lean
aprons. Then, again, those servi servorum have de-
pendents in the vast, silent, poverty-stricken world

ON A CHALK-MARK ON THE DOOR. 145

outside your comfortable kitchen fire, in the world of
darkness, and hunger, and miserable cold, and dank,
flagged cellars, and huddled straw, and rags, in which
pale children are swarming. It may be your beer
(which runs with great volubility) has a pipe or two
which communicates with those dark caverns where
hopeless anguish pours the groan, and would scarce
see light but for a scrap or two of candle which has
been whipped away from your worship's kitchen.
JSTot many years ago — I don't know whether before or
since that white mark was drawn on the door — a lady
occupied the confidential place of house-maid in this
"private residence," who brought a good character,
who seemed to have a cheerful temper, whom I used to
hear clattering and bumping overhead or on the stairs
long before daylight — there, I say, was poor Camilla,
scouring the plain, trundling and brushing, and clat-
tering with her pans and brooms, and humming at
her work. Well, she had established a smuggling
communication of beer over the area frontier. This
neat-handed Phyllis used to pack up the nicest bask-
ets of my provender, and convey them to somebody
outside — I believe, on my conscience, to some poor
friend in distress. Camilla was consigned to her doom.
She was sent back to her friends in the country ; and
when she was gone we heard of many of her faults.
She expressed herself, when displeased, in language
that I shall not repeat. As for the beer and meat,
there was no mistake about them. But aprh ? Can
I have the heart to be very angry with that poor jade
for helping another poorer jade out of my larder ? On
your honor and conscience, when you were a boy,
G

146 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

and the apples looked temptingly over Farmer Quar-
ringdon's hedge, did you never — ? When there was
a grand dinner at home, and you were sliding, with
Master Bacon, up and down the stairs, and the dishes
came out, did you ever do such a thing as just to — ?
Well, in many and many a respect servants are like
children. They are under domination. They are
subject to reproof, to ill temper, to petty exactions,
and stupid tyrannies, not seldom. They scheme, con-
spire, fawn, and are hypocrites. " Little boys should
not loll on chairs." " Little girls should be seen and
not heard ;" and so forth. Have we not almost all
learned these expressions of old foozles, and uttered
them ourselves when in the square-toed state ? The
Eton master, who was breaking a lance with our pa-
terfamilias of late, turned on paterfamilias, saying, He
knows not the nature and exquisite candor of well-
bred English boys. Exquisite fiddlestick's end, Mr.
Master ! Do you mean for to go for to tell us that the
relations between young gentlemen and their school-
masters are entirely frank and cordial ; that the lad is
familiar with the man who can have him flogged;
never shirks his exercises ; never gets other boys to
do his verses; never does other boys' verses; nev-
er breaks bounds ; never tells fibs — I mean the fibs
permitted by scholastic honor ? Did I know of a boy
who pretended to such a character, I would forbid my
scape-graces to keep company with him. Did I know
a schoolmaster who pretended to believe in the ex-
istence of many hundred such boys in one school
at one time, I would set that man down as a baby in
knowledge of the world. " Who was making that

ON A CHALK-MARK ON THE DOOR. 147

noise ?" " I don't know, sir." And he knows it was the
boy next him in school. "Who was climbing over
that wall ?" " I don't know, sir." And it is in the
speaker's own trowsers, very likely, the glass bottle-
tops have left their cruel scars. And so with serv-
ants. "Who ate up the three pigeons which went
down in the pigeon-pie at breakfast this morning?"
" Oh dear me ! sir, it was John, who went away last
month !" or, " I think it was Miss Mary's canary-bird,
which got out of the cage, and is so fond of pigeons
it never can have enough of them." Yes, it was the
canary-bird ; and Eliza saw it ; and Eliza is ready to
vow she did. These statements are not true, but
please don't call them lies. This is not lying; this is
voting with your party. You must back your own
side. The servants' hall stands by the servants' hall
against the dining-room. The school-boys don't tell
tales of each other. They agree not to choose to
know who has made the noise, who has broken the
window, who has eaten up the pigeons, who has
picked all the plovers' eggs out of the aspic, how
it is that liqueur brandy of Gledstanes is in such
porous glass bottles, and so forth. Suppose Brutus
had a footman who came and told him that the but-
ler drank the Curacoa, which of these servants would
you dismiss? the butler, perhaps, but the footman
certainly.

No. If your plate and glass are beautifully bright,
your bell quickly answered, and Thomas ready, neat,
and good-humored, you are not to expect absolute
truth from him. The very obsequiousness and per-
fection of his service prevents truth. He may be ever

148 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

so unwell in mind or body, and he must go through
his service— hand the shining plate, replenish the
spotless glass, lay the glittering fork — never laugh
when you yourself or your guests joke — be profound-
ly attentive, and yet look utterly impassive — exchange
a few hurried curses at the door with that unseen
slavey who ministers without, and with you be per-
fectly calm and polite. If you are ill, he will come
twenty times in an hour to your bell ; or leave the
girl of his heart — his mother, who is going to Amer-
ica— his dearest friend, who has come to say fare-
well— his lunch, and his glass of beer just freshly
poured out — any or all of these, if the door-bell rings,
or the master calls out " Thomas " from the hall. Do
you suppose you can expect absolute candor from a
man whom you may order to powder his hair? As
between the Rev. Henry Holyshade and his pupil the
idea of entire unreserve is utter bosh, so the truth as be-
tween you and Jeames or Thomas, or Mary the house-
maid, or Betty the cook, is relative, and not to be de-
manded on one side or the other. Why, respectful ci-
vility is itself a lie, which poor Jeames often has to ut-
ter or perform to many a swaggering vulgarian, who
should black Jeames's boots, did Jeames wear them and
not shoes. There is your little Tom, just ten, order-
ing the great, large, quiet, orderly young man about —
shrieking calls for hot water — bullying Jeames because
the boots are not varnished enough, or ordering him to
go to the stables and ask Jenkins why the deuce Tom-
kins hasn't brought his pony round — or what you
will. There is mamma rapping the knuckles of Pin-
cot the lady's-maid, and little miss scolding Martha,

ON A CHALK-MARK ON THE DOOR. 149

who waits up five pair of stairs in the nursery. Lit-
tle miss, Tommy, papa, mamma, you all expect from
Martha, from Pincot, from Jenkins, from Jeames, ob-
sequious civility and willing service. My dear, good
people, you can't have truth too. Suppose you ask
for your newspaper, and Jeames says, " I'm reading it,
and jest beg not to be disturbed ;" or suppose you ask
for a can of water, and he remarks, " You great, big,
'ulking fellar, ain't you big enough to bring it hup
yoursulf?" what would your feelings be? Now, if
you made similar proposals or requests to Mr. Jones
next door, this is the kind of an answer Jones would
give you. You get truth habitually from equals only ;
so my good Mr. Holyshade, don't talk to me about
the habitual candor of the young Etonian of high
birth, or I have my own opinion of your candor or
discernment when you do. No ; Tom Bowling is the
soul of honor, and has been true to Black-eyed Syou-
san since the last time they parted at Wapping Old
Stairs ; but do you suppose Tom is perfectly frank,
familiar, and above-board in his conversation with
Admiral Nelson, K.C.B. ? There are secrets, pre-
varications, fibs, if you will, between Tom and the ad-
miral— between your crew and their captain. I know
I hire a worthy, clean, agreeable, and conscientious
male or female hypocrite, at so many guineas a year,
to do so and so for me. Were he other than hypo-
crite I would send him about his business. Don't let
my displeasure be too fierce with him for a fib or two
on his own account.

Some dozen years ago, my family being absent in a
distant part of the country, and my business detaining

150 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

me in London, I remained in my own house with three
servants on board wages. I used only to breakfast at
home ; and future ages will be interested to know that
this meal used to consist, at that period, of tea, a pen-
ny roll, a pat of butter, and perhaps an egg. My
weekly bill used invariably to be about fifty shillings ;
so that, as I never dined in the house, you see, my
breakfast, consisting of the delicacies before mentioned,
cost about seven shillings and threepence per diem.
I must, therefore, have consumed daily —

S. (I.

A quarter of a pound of tea (say) . ..13

A penny roll (say) ...... 1 0

One pound of butter (say) ..... 1 3

One pound of lump-sugar 10

A new-laid egg ....... 2 0

which is the only possible way I have for making out
the sum.

"Well, I fell ill while under this regimen, and had an
illness which, but for a certain doctor, who was brought
to me by a certain kind friend I had in those days,
would, I think, have prevented the possibility of my
telling this interesting anecdote now a dozen years
after. Don't be frightened, my dear madam ; it is not
a horrid, sentimental account of a malady you are
coming to — only a question of grocery. This illness
I say, lasted some seventeen days, during which the
servants were admirably attentive and kind ; and poor
John, especially, was up at all hours, watching night
after night — amiable, cheerful, untiring, respectful, the
very best of Johns and nurses.

Twice or thrice in the seventeen days I may have
had a glass of eau sucree — say a dozen glasses of eau

ON A CHALK-MAKK ON THE DOOR. 151

sucree — certainly not more. Well, this admirable,
watchful, cheerful, tender, affectionate John brought
me in a little bill for seventeen pounds of sugar con-
sumed during the illness : " Often 'ad sugar and wa-
ter ; always was a callin' for it," says John, wagging
his head quite gravely. You are dead, years and
years ago, poor John — so patient, so friendly, so kind,
so cheerful to the invalid in the fever. But confess,
now, wherever you are, that seventeen pounds of su-
gar to make six glasses of eau sucree was a little too
strong, wasn't it, John ? Ah ! how frankly, how trust-
ily, how bravely he lied, poor John ! One evening,
being at Brighton, in the convalescence, I remember
John's step was unsteady, his voice thick, his laugh
queer ; and having some quinine to give me, John
brought the glass to me — not to my mouth, but struck
me with it pretty smartly in the eye, which was not
the way in which Dr. Elliotson had intended his pre-
scription should be taken. Turning that eye upon
him, I ventured to hint that my attendant had been
drinking. Drinking ! I never was more humiliated at
the thought of my own injustice than at John's reply.
"Drinking! Sulp me! I have had ony one pint of
beer with my dinner at one o'clock !" and he retreats,
holding on by a chair. These are fibs, you see, apper-
taining to the situation. John is drunk. " Sulp him,
he has only had an 'alf-pint of beer with his dinner six
hours ago ;" and none of his fellow-servants will say
otherwise. Polly is smuggled on board ship. Who
tells the lieutenant when he comes his rounds ? Boys
are playing cards in the bedroom. The outlying fag
announces master coming: out go candles — cards

152 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

popped into bed — boys sound asleep. Who bad that
light in the dormitory ? Law bless you ! the poor
dear innocents are every one snoring. Every one
snoring, and every snore is a lie told through the
nose ! Suppose one of your boys or mine is engaged
in that awful crime, are we going to break our hearts
about it ? Come, come. We pull a long face, waggle
a grave head, and chuckle within our waistcoats.

Between me and those fellow-creatures of mine who
are sitting in the room below, how strange and won-
derful is the partition ! We meet at every hour of
the daylight, and are indebted to each other for a
hundred offices of duty and comfort of life ; and we
live together for years, and don't know each other.
John's voice to me is quite different from John's voice
when it addresses his mates below. If I met Hannah
in the street with a bonnet on, I doubt whether I
should know her. And all these good people, with
whom I may live for years and years, have cares, in-
terests, dear friends and relatives, mayhap schemes,
passions, longing hopes, tragedies of their own, from
which a carpet and a few planks and beams utterly
separate me. When we were at the sea-side, and poor
Ellen used to look so pale, and run after the postman's
bell, and seize a letter in a great scrawling hand, and
read it, and cry in a corner, how should we know that
the poor little thing's heart was breaking? She fetch-
ed the water, and she smoothed the ribbons, and she
laid out the dresses, and brought the early cup of tea
in the morning, just as if she had had no cares to keep
her awake. Henry (who lived out of the house) was
the servant of a friend of mine who lived in chambers.

ON A CHALK-MARK ON THE DOOR. 153

There was a dinner one day, and Henry waited all
through the dinner. The Champagne was properly
iced, the dinner was excellently served ; every guest
was attended to ; the dinner disappeared ; the dessert
was set ; the claret was in perfect order, carefully de-
canted, and more ready. And then Henry said, " If
you please, sir, may I go home ?" He had received
word that his house was on fire ; and, having seen
through his dinner, he wished to go and look after his
children, and little sticks of furniture. Why, such a
man's livery is a uniform of honor. The crest on his
button is a badge of bravery.

Do you see — I imagine I do myself — in these little
instances a tinge of humor ? Ellen's heart is break-
ing for handsome Jeames of Buckley Square, whose
great legs are kneeling, and who has given a lock of
his precious powdered head to some other than Ellen.
Henry is preparing the sauce for his master's wild
ducks while the engines are squirting over his own
little nest and brood. Lift these figures up but a story
from the basement to the ground floor, and the fun is
gone. We may be en pleine tragedie. Ellen may
breathe her last sigh in blank verse, calling down bless-
ings upon James the profligate who deserts her. Hen-
ry is a hero, and epaulets are on his shoulders. At-
qui sciebat, etc., whatever tortures are in store for him,
he will be at his post of duty.

You concede, however, that there is a touch of hu-
mor in the two tragedies here mentioned. Why ? Is
it that the idea of persons at service is somehow lu-
dicrous ? Perhaps it is made more so in this country
by the splendid appearance of the liveried domestics
G2

154 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

of great people. When you think that we dress in
black ourselves, and put our fellow-creatures in green,
pink, or canary-colored breeches ; that we order them
to plaster their hair with flour, having brushed that
nonsense out of our own heads fifty years ago ; that
some of the most genteel and stately among us cause
the men who drive their carriages to put on little Al-
bino wigs, and sit behind great nosegays — I say I sup-
pose it is this heaping of gold lace, gaudy colors, bloom-
ing plushes, on honest John Trot, which makes the
man absurd in our eyes, who need be nothing but a
simple reputable citizen and indoor laborer. Suppose,
my dear sir, that you yourself were suddenly desired
to put on a full dress, or even undress, domestic uni-
form, with our friend Jones's crest repeated in varied
combinations of button on your front and back ? Sup-
pose, madam, your son were told that he could not go
out except in lower garments of carnation or amber-
colored plush — would you let him? .... But, as you
justly say, this is not the question, and, besides, it is a
question fraught with danger, sir ; and radicalism, sir ;
and subversion of the very foundations of the social
fabric, sir. ... Well, John, we won't enter on your
great domestic question. Don't let us disport with
Jeames's dangerous strength, and the edge-tools about
his knife-board ; but with Betty and Susan who wield
the playful mop, and set on the simmering kettle.
Surely you have heard Mrs. Toddles talking to Mrs.
Doddles about their mutual maids ? Miss Susan must
have a silk gown, and Miss Betty must wear flowers
under her bonnet when she goes to church if you
please, and did you ever hear such impudence ? The

ON A CHALK-MARK ON THE DOOR. 155

servant in many small establishments is a constant and
endless theme of talk. What small wage, sleep, meal,
what endless scouring, scolding, tramping on messages,
fall to that poor Susan's lot ; what indignation at the
little kindly passing word with the grocer's young
man, the pot-boy, the chubby butcher ! Where such
things will end, my dear Mrs. Toddles, I don't know.
What wages they will want next, my dear Mrs. Dod-
dles, etc.

Here, dear ladies, is an advertisement which I cut
out of The Times a few days since, expressly for you :

A LADY is desirous of obtaining a SITUATION for a very re-
spectable young woman as HEAD KITCHEN-MAID under a
man-cook. She has lived four years under a very good cook and
housekeeper. Can make ice, and is an excellent baker. She will
only take a place in a very good family, where she can have the op-
portunity of improving herself, and, if possible, staying for two years.
Apply by letter to, etc., etc.

There, Mrs. Toddles, what do you think of that, and
did you ever ? Well, no, Mrs. Doddles. Upon my
word, now, Mrs. T., I don't think I ever did. A re-
spectable young woman — as head kitchen-maid — un-
der a man-cook, will only take a place in a very good
family, where she can improve, and stay two years.
Just note up the conditions, Mrs. Toddles, mum, if you
please, mum, and then let us see :

1. This young woman is to be head kitchen-maid;

that is to say, there is to be a chorus of kitchen-
maids, of which the Y. W. is to be chief.

2. She will only be situated under a man-cook. (A)

ought he to be a French cook ; and (B), if

156 i ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

so, would the lady desire him to be a Prot-
estant ?
3. She will only take a place in a very good family.
How old ought the family to be, and what do
you call good ? that is the question. How long-
after the Conquest will do ? Would a banker's
family do, or is a baronet's good enough ? Best
say what rank in the peerage would be suffi-
ciently high. But the lady does not say wheth-
er she would like a High-Church or a Low-
Church family. Ought there to be unmarried
sons, and may they follow a profession? and
please say how many daughters ; and would the
lady like them to be musical ? And how many
company dinners a week ? Not too many, for
fear of fatiguing the upper kitchen-maid ; but
sufficient, so as to keep the upper kitchen-
maid's hand in. [N.B. — I think I can see a
rather bewildered expression on the counte-
nance of Mesdames Doddles and Toddles as I
am prattling on in this easy bantering way.]
The head kitchen-maid wishes to stay for two
years, and improve herself under the man -cook,
and having of course sucked the brains (as the
phrase is) from under the chef's night-cap, then
the head kitchen-maid wishes to go.

And upon my word, Mrs. Toddles, mum, I will go and
fetch the cab for her. The cab ? Why not her lady-
ship's own carriage and pair, and the head coachman
to drive away the head kitchen-maid ? You see she
stipulates for every thing — the time to come ; the time

ON A CHALK-MARK ON THE DOOR. 157

to stay ; the family she will be with ; and as soon as
she has improved herself enough, of course the upper
kitchen-maid will step into the carriage and drive off.

Well, upon my word and conscience, if things are
coming to this pass, Mrs. Toddles, and Mrs. Doddles,
mum, I think I will go up stairs and get a basin and a
sponge, and then down stairs and get some hot water ;
and then I will go and scrub that chalk-mark off my
own door with my own hands.

It is wiped off, I declare! After ever so many
weeks ! Who has done it ? It was just a little round-
about mark, you know, and it was there for days and
weeks before I ever thought it would be the text of a
Koundabout Paper.

158

ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

ON BEING FOUND OUT,

T the close (let us say)
of Queen Anne's
reign, when I was
a boy at a private
and preparatory
school for young
gentlemen, I re-
member the wise-
acre of a master or-
dering us all, one
night, to march
into a little garden
at the back of the
house, and thence
to proceed one by
one into a tool or
~ " -^^---^^ hen house (I was

but a tender little thing just put into short clothes,
and can't exactly say whether the house was for tools
or hens), and in that house to put our hands into a
sack which stood on a bench, a candle burning beside
it. I put my hand into the sack. My hand came
out quite black. I went and joined the other boys in
the school-room ; and all their hands were black too.
By reason of my tender age (and there are some

ON BEING FOUND OUT. 159

critics who, I hope, will be satisfied by my acknowl-
edging that I am a hundred and fifty-six next birth-
day) I could not understand what was the meaning of
this night excursion — this candle, this tool-house, this
bag of soot. I think we little boys were taken out of
our sleep to be brought to the ordeal. We came,
then, and showed our little hands to the master ; wash-
ed them or not — most probably, I should say, not —
and so went bewildered back to bed.

Something had been stolen in the school that day ;
and Mr. Wiseacre having read in a book of an in-
genious method of rinding out a thief by making him
put his hand into a sack (which, if guilty, the rogue
would shirk from doing), all we boys were subjected
to the trial. Goodness knows what the lost object
was, or who stole it. We all had black hands to show
to the master. And the thief, whoever he was, was
not Found Out that time.

I wonder if the rascal is alive — an elderly scoun-
drel he must be by this time ; and a hoary old hypo-
crite, to whom an old school-fellow presents his kindest
regards — parenthetically remarking what a dreadful
place that private school was ; cold, chilblains, bad
dinners, not enough victuals, and caning awful ! Are
you alive still, I say, you nameless villain, who escaped
discovery on that day of crime ? I hope you have
escaped often since, old sinner. Ah ! what a lucky
thing it is for you and me, my man, that we are not
found out in all our peccadilloes, and that our backs
can slip away from the master and the cane !

Just consider what life would be if every rogue was
found out, and flogged coram popido ! What a butch-

160 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

ery, what an indecency, what an endless swishing of
the rod ! Don't cry out about my misanthropy. My
good friend Mealymouth, I will trouble you to tell
me, do you go to church ? When there, do you say,
or do you not, that you are a miserable sinner ? and,
saying so, do you believe or disbelieve it? If you are
a M. S., don't you deserve correction, and aren't you
grateful if you are to be let off? I say again, what a
blessed thing it is that we are not all found out !

Just picture to yourself every body who does wrong
being found out, and punished accordingly. Fancy
all the boys in all the schools being whipped, and then
the assistants, and then the head master (Dr. Bradford
let us call him). Fancy the provost-marshal being
tied up, having previously superintended the correc-
tion of the whole army. After the young gentlemen
have had their turn for the faulty exercises, fancy Dr.
Lincolnsinn being taken up for certain faults in his
Essay and Eeview. After the clergyman has cried
his peccavi, suppose we hoist up a bishop, and give
him a couple of dozen ! (I see my Lord Bishop of
Double-Gloucester sitting in a very uneasy posture
on his right reverend bench.) After we have cast off
the bishop, what are we to say to the minister who
1 appointed him ? My Lord Cinqwarden, it is painful
1 to have to use personal correction to a boy of your
age ; but really . . . Siste tandem, carnifex / The
butchery is too horrible. The hand drops powerless,
appalled at the quantity of birch which it must cut
and brandish. I am glad we are not all found out, I
say again ; and protest, my dear brethren, against our
having our deserts.

ON BEING FOUND OUT. 161

To fancy all men found out and punished is bad
enough ; but imagine all women found out in the dis-
tinguished social circle in which you and I have the
honor to move. Is it not a mercy that a many of
these fair criminals remain unpunished and undiscov-
ered ? There is Mrs. Longbow, who is forever prac-
ticing, and who shoots poisoned arrows too; when
you meet her you don't call her liar, and charge her
with the wickedness she has done and is doing?
There is Mrs. Painter, who passes for a most respecta-
ble woman, and a model in society. There is no use
in saying what you really know regarding her and
her goings on. There is Diana Hunter — what a lit-
tle, haughty prude it is; and yet we know stories
about her which are not altogether edifying. I say it
is best, for the sake of the good, that the bad should
not all be found out. You don't want your children
to know the history of that lady in the next box, who
is so handsome, and whom they admire so? Ah
me ! what would life be if we were all found out, and
punished for all our faults ? Jack Ketch would be in
permanence ; and then who would hang Jack Ketch?

They talk of murderers being pretty certainly found
out. Pshaw! I have heard an authority awfully
competent vow and declare that scores and hundreds
of murders are committed, and nobody is the wiser.
That terrible man mentioned one or two ways of com-
mitting murder, which he maintained were quite com-
mon, and were scarcely ever found out. A man, for
instance, comes home to his wife, and . . . but I
pause ; I know that this Magazine has a very large
circulation. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands —

162 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

why not say a million of people at once ? — well, say a
million of people read it. And among these countless
readers I might be teaching some monster how to
make away with his wife without being found out,
some fiend of a woman how to destroy her dear hus-
band. I will not, then, tell this easy and simple way
of murder, as communicated to me by a most respect-
able party in the confidence of private intercourse.
Suppose some gentle reader were to try this most sim-
ple and easy receipt — it seems to me almost infallible
— and come to grief in consequence, and be found out
and hanged ? Should I ever pardon myself for hav-
ing been the means of doing injury to a single one of
our esteemed subscribers ? The prescription whereof
I speak — that is to say, whereof I donH speak — shall
be buried in this bosom. No, I am a humane man.
I am not one of your Bluebeards to go and say to my
wife, " My dear, I am going away for a few days to
Brighton. Here are all the keys of the house. You
may open every door and closet except the one at the
end of the oak-room opposite the fire-place, with the
little bronze Shakspeare on the mantle-piece (or what
not)." I don't say this to a woman — unless, to be
sure, I want to get rid of her — because, after such a
caution, I know she'll peep into the closet. I say
nothing about the closet at all. I keep the key in
my pocket, and a being whom I love, but who, as I
know, has many weaknesses, out of harm's way. You
toss up your head, dear angel, drub on the ground
with your lovely little feet, on the table with your
sweet rosy fingers, and cry, " Oh sneerer ! You don't
know the depth of woman's feeling, the lofty scorn of

ON BEING FOUND OUT. 163

all deceit, the entire absence of mean curiosity in the
sex, or never, never would you libel us so !" "Ah,
Delia ! dear, dear Delia ! it is because I fancy I do
know something about you (not all, mind — no, no;
no man knows that). Ah ! my bride, my ringdove,
my rose, my poppet — choose, in fact, whatever name
you like — bulbul of my grove, fountain of my desert,
sunshine of my darkling life, and joy of my dungeon-
ed existence, it is because I do know a little about you
that I conclude to say nothing of that private closet,
and keep my key in my pocket. You take away that
closet-key then, and the house-key. You lock Delia
in. You keep her out of harm's way and gadding,
and so she never can be found out.

And yet by little strange accidents and coincidents
how we are being found out every day ! You remem-
ber that old story of the Abbe Kakatoes, who told the
company at supper one night how the first confession
he ever received was from a murderer, let us say.
Presently enters to supper the Marquis de Croquemi-
taine. "Palsambleu, abbe* !" says the brilliant mar-
quis, taking a pinch of snuff, " are you here ? Gen-
tlemen and ladies, I was the abbd's first penitent, and
I made him a confession which I promise you aston-
ished him."

To be sure, how queerly things are found out!
Here is an instance. Only the other day I was writ-
ing in these Roundabout Papers about a certain man
whom I facetiously called Baggs, and who had abused
me to my friends, who of course told me. Shortly
after that paper was published another friend, Sacks,
let us call him, scowls fiercely at me as I am sitting in

164 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

perfect good-humor at the club, and passes on without
speaking. A cut. A quarrel. Sacks thinks it is
about him that I am writing ; whereas, upon my hon-
or and conscience, I never had him once in my mind,
and was pointing my moral from quite another man.
But don't you see, by this wrath of the guilty-con-
scienced Sacks, that he had been abusing me too?
He has owned himself guilty, never having been ac-
cused. He has winced when nobody thought of hit-
ting him. I did but put the cap out, and madly but-
ting and charing, behold my friend rushes to put his
head into it ! Never mind, Sacks, you are found out,
but I bear you no malice, my man.

And yet to be found out, I know from my own ex-
perience, must be painful and odious, and cruelly mor-
tifying to the inward vanity. Suppose I am a pol-
troon, let us say. With fierce mustache, loud talk,
plentiful oaths, and an immense stick, I keep up nev-
ertheless a character for courage. I swear fearfully at
cabmen and women ; brandish my bludgeon, and per-
haps knock down a little man or two with it ; brag of
the images which I break at the shooting-gallery, and
pass among my friends for a whiskery fire-eater, afraid
of neither man nor dragon. Ah me ! Suppose some
brisk little chap steps up and gives me a caning in St.
James's Street, with all the heads of my friends look-
ing out of all the club windows ? My reputation is
gone. I frighten no man more. My nose is pulled
by whipper-snappers, who jump up on a chair to reach
it. I am found out. And in the days of my tri-
umphs, when people were yet afraid of me, and were
taken in by my swagger, I always knew that I was a

ON BEING FOUND OUT. 165

lily-liver, and expected that I should be found out
some day.

That certainty of being found out must haunt and
depress many a bold braggadocio spirit. Let us say
it is a clergyman, who can pump copious floods of
tears out of his own eyes and those of his audience.
He thinks to himself, "I am but a poor swindling,
chattering rogue. My bills are unpaid. I have jilted
several women whom I have promised to marry. I
don't know whether I believe what I preach, and I
know I have stolen the very sermon over which I
have been sniveling. Have they found me out ?" says
he, as his head drops down on the cushion.

Then your writer, poet, historian, novelist, or what
not. The Beacon says that "Jones's work is one of
the first order." The Lamp declares that "Jones's
tragedy surpasses every work since the days of Him
of Avon." The Comet asserts that "J.'s Life of Goody
Two Shoes is a Krijfia tg aa, a noble and enduring mon-
ument to the fame of that admirable Englishwoman,"
and so forth. But then Jones knows that he has lent
the critic of the Beacon five pounds ; that his publish-
er has a half share in the Lamp ; and that the Comet
comes repeatedly to dine with him. It is all very
well. Jones is immortal until he is found out ; and
then down comes the extinguisher, and the immortal
is dead and buried. The idea {dies iro? /) of discovery
must haunt many a man, and make him uneasy, as the
trumpets are puffing in his triumph. Brown, who has
a higher place than he deserves, cowers before Smith,
who has found him out. What is a chorus of critics
shouting " Bravo?" a public clapping hands and fling-

166 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

ing garlands? Brown knows that Smith has found
him out. Puff, trumpets ! Wave, banners ! Hurrah,
boys, for the immortal Brown ! " This is all very
well," B. thinks (bowing the while, smiling, laying his
hand to his heart); "but there stands Smith at the
window : he has measured me ; and some day the oth-
ers will find me out too." It is a very curious sensa-
tion to sit by a man who has found you out, and who,
as you know, has found you out, or, vice versa, to sit
with a man whom you have found out. His talent ?
Bah ! His virtue ? We know a little story or two
about his virtue, and he knows we know it. We are
thinking over friend Kobinson's antecedents, as we
grin, bow, and talk, and we are both humbugs togeth-
er. Kobinson a good fellow, is he ? You know how
he behaved to Hicks ? A good-natured man, is he ?
Pray, do you remember that little story of Mrs. Kob-
inson's black eye ? How men have to work, to talk,
to smile, to go to bed, and try and sleep, with this
dread of being found out on their consciences ! Bar-
dolph, who has robbed a church, and Nym, who has
taken a purse, go to their usual haunts, and smoke
their pipes with their companions. Mr. Detective
Bullseye appears, and says, " Oh, Bardolph ! I want
you about that there pyx business !" Mr. Bardolph
knocks the ashes out of his pipe, puts out his hands to
the little steel cuffs, and walks away quite meekly.
He is found out. He must go. " Grood-by, Doll Tear-
sheet ! Good-by, Mrs. Quickly, ma'am !" The other
gentlemen and ladies de la socieie look on and exchange
mute adieux with the departing friends. And an as-
sured time will come when the other gentlemen and
ladies will be found out too.

ON BEING FOUND OUT. 167

What a wonderful and beautiful provision of nature
it has been that, for the most part, our womankind are
not endowed with the faculty of finding us out ! They
don't doubt, and probe, and weigh, and take your
measure. Lay down this paper, my benevolent friend
and reader, go into your drawing-room now, and utter
a joke ever so old, and I wager sixpence the ladies
there will all begin to laugh. Go to Brown's house,
and tell Mrs. Brown and the young ladies what you
think of him, and see what a welcome you will get !
In like manner, let him come to your house, and tell
your good lady his candid opinion of you, and fancy
how she will receive him ! "Would you have your
wife and children know you exactly for what you are,
and esteem you precisely at your worth ? If so, my
friend, you will live in a dreary house, and you will
have but a chilly fireside. Do you suppose the peo-
ple round it don't see your homely face as under a
glamour, and, as it were, with a halo of love round
it? You don't fancy you are as you seem to them?
No such thing, my man. Put away that monstrous
conceit, and be thankful that they have not found you
out.

168

KOUNDABOTJT PAPEKS.

ON A HUNDRED YEARS HENCE.

HERE have I just
read of a game
played at a coun-
try house? The
party assembles
round a table with
pens, ink, and pa-
per. Some one
narrates a tale con-
taining more or
less incidents and
personages. Each
person of the com-
pany then writes
down, to the best
of his memory and
ability, the anecdote just narrated, and finally the pa-
pers are to be read out. I do not say I should like to
play often at this game, which might possibly be a te-
dious and lengthy pastime, not by any means so amus-
ing as smoking a cigar in the conservatory ; or even
listening to the young ladies playing their piano-pieces ;
or to Hobbs and Nobbs lingering round the bottle, and
talking over the morning's run with the hounds ; but
surely it is a moral and ingenious sport. They say

ON A HUNDRED YEARS HENCE. 169

the variety of narratives is often very odd and amus-
ing. The original story becomes so changed and dis-
torted that at the end of all the statements you are
puzzled to know where the truth is at all. As time
is of small importance to the cheerful persons engaged
in this sport, perhaps a good way of playing it would
be to spread it over a couple of years. Let the peo-
ple who played the game in '60 all meet and play it
once more in '61, and each write his story over again.
Then bring out your original and compare notes. Not
only will the stories differ from each other, but the
writers will probably differ from themselves. In the
course of the year the incidents will grow or will dwin-
dle strangely. The least authentic of the statements
will be so lively or so malicious, or so neatly put, that
it will appear most like the truth. I like these tales
and sportive exercises. I had begun a little print col-
lection once. I had Addison in his night-gown in bed
at Holland House, requesting young Lord Warwick
to remark how a Christian should die. I had Cam-
bronne clutching his cocked hat, and uttering the im-
mortal la Garde meurt et ne se rend pas. I had the
Vengeur going down, and all the crew hurrahing like
madmen. I had Alfred toasting the muffin ; Curtius
(Hay don) jumping into the gulf; with extracts from
Napoleon's bulletins, and a fine authentic portrait of
Baron Munchausen.

What man who has been before the public at all
has not heard similar wonderful anecdotes regarding
himself and his own history ? In these humble essay-
kins I have taken leave to egotize. I cry out about
the shoes which pinch me, and, as I fancy, more natu-

H

170 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

rally and pathetically than if my neighbor's corns were
trodden under foot. I prattle about the dish which I
love, the wine which I like, the talk I heard yesterday
— about Brown's absurd airs — Jones's ridiculous ela-
tion when he thinks he has caught me in a blunder (a
part of the fun, you see, is that Jones will read this,
and will perfectly well know that I mean him, and
that we shall meet and grin at each other with entire
politeness). This is not the highest kind of specula-
tion, I confess, but it is a gossip which amuses some
folks. A brisk and honest small-beer will refresh
those who do not care for the frothy outpourings of
heavier taps. A two of clubs may be a good, handy
little card sometimes, and able to tackle a king of dia-
monds, if it is a little trump. Some philosophers get
their wisdom with deep thought and out of ponderous
libraries ; I pick up my small crumbs of cogitation at
a dinner-table, or from Mrs. Mary and Miss Louisa as
they are prattling over their five o'clock tea.

Well, yesterday at dinner Jucundus was good enough
to tell me a story about myself, which he had heard
from a lady of his acquaintance, to whom I send my
best compliments. The tale is this. At nine o'clock
on the evening of the 31st of November last, just be-
fore sunset, I was seen leaving No. 96 Abbey Koad,
St. John's Wood, leading two little children by the
hand, one of them in a nankeen pelisse, and the other
having a mole on the third finger of his left hand (she
thinks it was the third finger, but is quite sure it was
the left hand). Thence I walked with them to Charles
Boroughbridge's, pork and sausage man, No. 29 Upper
Theresa Koad. Here, while I left the little girl inno-

ON A HUNDKED YEARS HENCE. 171

cently eating a polony in the front shop, I and Bor-
oughbridge retired with the boy into the back par-
lor, where Mrs. Boroughbridge was playing cribbage.
She put up the cards and boxes, took out a chopper
and a napkin, and we cut the little boy's little throat
(which he bore with great pluck and resolution), and
made him into sausage-meat by the aid of Purkis's ex-
cellent sausage-machine. The little girl at first could
not understand her brother's absence, but, under the
pretense of taking her to see Mr. Fechter in Hamlet, I
led her down to the New Eiver at Sadler's Wells,
where a body of a child in a nankeen pelisse was sub-
sequently found, and has never been recognized to the
present day. And this Mrs. Lynx can aver, because
she saw the whole transaction with her own eyes, as
she told Mr. Jucundus.

I have altered the little details of the anecdote some-
what. But this story is, I vow and declare, as true as
Mrs. Lynx's. Gracious goodness ! how do lies begin ?
What are the averages of lying ? Is the same amount
of lies told about every man, and do we pretty much
all tell the same amount of lies ? Is the average great-
er in Ireland than in Scotland, or vice versa — among
women than among men ? Is this a lie I am telling
now ? If I am talking about you, the odds are, per-
haps, that it is. I look back at some which have been
told about me, and speculate on them with thanks and
wonder. Dear friends have told them of me, have
told them to me of myself. Have they not to and of
you, dear friend? A friend of mine was dining at a
large dinner of clergymen, and a story, as true as the
sausage story above given, was told regarding me by

172 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

one of those reverend divines, in whose frocks sit some
anile chatterboxes, as any man, who knows this world,
knows. They take the privilege of their gown. They
cabal, and tattle, and hiss, and cackle comminations
under their breath. I say the old women of the other
sex are not more talkative or more mischievous than
some of these. " Such a man ought not to be spoken
to," says Grobemouche, narrating the story — and such
a story! "And I am surprised he is admitted into
society at all." Yes, dear Gobemouche, but the story
wasn't true ; and I had no more done the wicked deed
in question than I had run away with the Queen of
Sheba.

I have always longed to know what that story was
(or what collection of histories) which a lady had in
her mind to whom a servant of mine applied for a
place, when I was breaking up my establishment once,
and going abroad. Brown went with a very good
character from us, which, indeed, she fully deserved
after several years' faithful service. But when Mrs.
Jones read the name of the person out of whose em-
ployment Brown came, " That is quite sufficient," says
Mrs. Jones. " You may go. I will never take a serv-
ant out of that house." Ah ! Mrs. Jones, how I should
like to know what that crime was, or what that series
of villainies, which made you determine never to take
a servant out of my house. Do you believe in the
story of the little boy and the sausages ? Have you
swallowed that little minced infant ? Have you de-
voured that young Polonius? Upon my word, you
have maw enough. We somehow greedily gobble
down all stories in which the characters of our friends

ON A HUNDRED YEARS HENCE. 173

are chopped up, and believe wrong of them without
inquiry. In a late serial work written by this hand,
I remember making some pathetic remarks about our
propensity to believe ill of our neighbors ; and I re-
member the remarks, not because they were valuable,
or novel, or ingenious, but because, within three days
after they had appeared in print, the moralist who
wrote them, walking home with a friend, heard a story
about another friend, which story he straightway be-
lieved, and which story was scarcely more true than
that sausage fable which is here set down. 0 mea
culpa, mea maxima culpa ! But, though the preacher
trips, shall not the doctrine be good ? Yea, brethren !
Here be the rods. Look you, here are the scourges.
Choose me a nice long, swishing, buddy one, light and
well-poised in the handle, thick and bushy at the tail.
Pick me out a whipcord thong with some dainty knots
in it — and now — we all deserve it — whish! whish!
whish ! Let us cut into each other all round.

A favorite liar and servant of mine was a man I
once had to drive a brougham. He never came to
my house except for orders, and once when he help-
ed to wait at dinner so clumsily that it was agreed we
would dispense with his farther efforts. The (job)
brougham horse used to look dreadfully lean and
tired, and the livery-stable-keeper complained that
we worked him too hard. Now it turned out that
there was a neighboring butcher's lady who liked to
ride in a brougham, and Tomkins lent her ours, drove
her cheerfully to Eichmond and Putney, and, I sup-
pose, took out a payment in mutton-chops. We gave
this good Tomkius wine and medicine for his family

174 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

when sick ; we supplied him with little comforts and
extras which . need not now be remembered ; and the
grateful creature rewarded us by informing some of
our tradesmen whom he honored with his custom,
"Mr. Eoundabout? Lor bless you ! I carry him up
to bed drunk every night in the week" — he, Tom-
kins, being a man of seven stone weight and five feet
high, whereas his employer was — but here modesty
interferes, and I decline to enter into the avoirdupois
question.

Now, what was Tomkins's motive for the utterance
and dissemination of these lies? They could further
no conceivable end or interest of his own. Had they
been true stories, Tomkins's master would still, and
reasonably, have been more angry than at the fables.
It was but suicidal slander on the part of Tomkins —
must come to a discovery — must end in a punishment.
The poor wretch had got his place under, as it turned
out, a fictitious character. He might have staid in it,
for of course Tomkins had a wife and poor innocent
children. He might have had bread, beer, bed, char-
acter, coats, coals. He might have nestled in our lit-
tle island, comfortably sheltered from the storms of
life ; but we were compelled to cast him out, and send
him driving, lonely, perishing, tossing, starving, to sea
— to drown. To drown ? There be other modes of
death whereby rogues die. Good-by, Tomkins. And
so the night-cap is put on, and the bolt is drawn for
poor T.

Suppose we were to invite volunteers among our
respected readers to send in little statements of the
lies which they know have been told about them-

ON A HUNDRED YEARS HENCE. 175

selves ; what a heap of correspondence, what an ex-
aggeration of malignities, what a crackling bonfire of
incendiary falsehoods might we not gather together !
And a lie once set going, having the breath of life
breathed into it by the father of lying, and ordered to
run its diabolical little course, lives with a prodigious
vitality. You say, "Magna est Veritas et pr&valebit"
Pshaw ! Great lies are as great as great truths, and
prevail constantly, and day after day. Take an in-
stance or two out of my own little budget. I sit near
a gentleman at dinner, anc| the conversation turns
upon a certain anonymous literary performance which
at the time is amusing the town. " Oh," says the
gentleman, "every body knows who wrote that pa-
per; it is Momus's." I was a young author at the
time, perhaps proud of my bantling: "I beg your
pardon," I say, " it was written by your humble serv-
ant," "Indeed!" was all that the man replied, and
he shrugged his shoulders, turned his back, and talk-
ed to his other neighbor. I never heard sarcastic in-
credulity more finely conveyed than by that " indeed."
" Impudent liar," the gentleman's face said, as clear as
face could speak. Where was Magna Veritas, and
how did she prevail then ? She lifted up her voice,
she made her appeal, and she was kicked out of court.
In New York I read a newspaper criticism one day
(by an exile from our shores who has taken up his
abode in the Western Kepublic), commenting upon a
letter of mine which had appeared in a contemporary
volume, and wherein it was stated that the writer was
a lad in such and such a year, and, in point of fact, I
was, at the period spoken of, nineteen years of age.

176 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

"Falsehood, Mr. Koundabout," says the noble critic;
" you were not then a lad ; you were then six-and-
twenty years of age." You see he knew better than
papa, and mamma, and parish register. It was easier
for him to think and say I lied, on a twopenny matter
connected with my own affairs, than to imagine he
was mistaken. Years ago, in a time when we were
very mad wags, Arcturus and myself met a gentle-
man from China who knew the language. We be-
gan to speak Chinese against him. We said we were
born in China. We were two to one. We spoke
the mandarin dialect with perfect fluency. We had
the company with us ; as in the old, old days, the
squeak of the real pig was voted not to be so natural
as the squeak of the sham pig. Oh Arcturus, the
sham pig squeaks in our streets now to the applause
of multitudes, and the real porker grunts unheeded
in his sty !

I once talked for some little time with an amiable
lady ; it was for the first time ; and I saw an expres-
sion of surprise on her kind face, which said as plain-
ly as face could say, " Sir, do you know that up to
this moment I have had a certain opinion of you, and
that I begin to think I have been mistaken or mis-
led?" I not only know that she had heard evil re-
ports of me, but I know who told her — one of those
acute fellows, my dear brethren, of whom we spoke
in a previous sermon, who has found me out — found
out actions which I never did, found out thoughts
and sayings which I never spoke, and judged me ac-
cordingly. Ah ! my lad, have I found you out ? 0
risum teneatis. Perhaps the person I am accusing is
no more guilty than I.

ON A HUNDRED YEARS HENCE. 177

How comes it that the evil which men say spreads
so widely and lasts so long, while our good, kind
words don't seem somehow to take root and bear
blossom ? Is it that in the stony hearts of mankind
these pretty flowers can't find a place to grow ? Cer-
tain it is that scandal is good brisk talk, whereas
praise of one's neighbor is by no means lively hear-
ing. An acquaintance grilled, scored, deviled, and
served with mustard and Cayenne pepper, excites the
appetite, whereas a slice of cold friend with currant
jelly is but a sickly, unrelishing meat.

Now, such being the case, my dear worthy Mrs.
Candor, in whom I know there are a hundred good
and generous qualities, it being perfectly clear that
the good things which we say of our neighbors don't
fructify, but somehow perish in the ground where
they are dropped, while the evil words are wafted by
all the winds of scandal, take root in all soils, and
flourish amazingly — seeing, I say, that this conversa-
tion does not give us a fair chance, suppose we give
up censoriousness altogether, and decline uttering our
opinions about Brown, Jones, and Robinson (and Mes-
dames B., J., and R) at all ? We may be mistaken
about every one of them, as, please goodness, those
anecdote-mongers against whom I have uttered my
meek protest have been mistaken about me. We
need not go to the extent of saying that Mrs. Man-
ning was an amiable creature, much misunderstood ;
and Jack Thurtell a gallant, unfortunate fellow, not
near so black as he was painted ; but we will try and
avoid personalities altogether in talk, won't we ? We
will range the fields of science, dear madam, and com-

H2

178 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

municate to each other the pleasing results of our stud-
ies. We will, if you please, examine the infinitesimal
wonders of nature through the microscope. We will
cultivate entomology. We will sit with our arms
round each other's waists on the pons asinorum, and
see the stream of mathematics flow beneath. We
will take refuge in cards, and play at "beggar my
neighbor," not abuse my neighbor. We will go to
the Zoological Gardens, and talk freely about the go-
rilla and his kindred, but not talk about people who
can talk in their turn. Suppose we praise the High
Church ? we offend the Low Church. The Broad
Church? High and Low are both offended. What
do you think of Lord Derby as a politician ? And
what is your opinion of Lord Palmerston ? If you
please, will you play me those lovely variations of
" In my cottage near a wood ?" It is a charming
air (you know it in French, I suppose ? Ah ! te di-
rai-je, maman /), and was a favorite with poor Marie
Antoinette. I say " poor" because I have a right to
speak with pity of a sovereign who was renowned for
so much beauty and so much misfortune. But as for
giving any opinion on her conduct, saying that she
was good or bad, or indifferent, goodness forbid ! We
have agreed we will not be censorious. Let us have
a game at cards — at ecarte, if you please. You deal.
I ask for cards. I lead the deuce of clubs. . . .

What ? there is no deuce ! Deuce take it ! What ?
People will go on talking about their neighbors, and
won't have their mouths stopped by cards, or ever so
much microscopes and aquariums? Ah! my poor
dear Mrs. Candor, I agree with you. By the way,

ON A HUNDRED YEARS HENCE. 179

did you ever see any thing like Lady Godiva Trot-
ter's dress last night ? People will go on chattering,
although we hold our tongues; and, after all, my
good soul, what will their scandal matter a hundred
years hence ?

180

ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

SMALL-BEER CHRONICLE,

OT long since, at a
certain banquet, I
had the good for-
tune to sit by Doc-
tor Polymathesis,
who knows every
thing, and . who,
about the time when
the claret made its
appearance, men-
tioned that old dic-
tum of the grum-
s bling Oxford Don,
that "All claret
would be port if it could!" Imbibing a bumper of one
or the other not ungratefully, I thought to myself,
" Here surely, Mr. Eoundabout, is a good text for one
of your reverence's sermons." Let us apply to the
human race, dear brethren, what is here said of the
vintages of Portugal and Grascony, and we shall have
no difficulty in perceiving how many clarets aspire to
be ports in their way ; how most men and women of
our acquaintance, how we ourselves, are Aquitanians
giving ourselves Lusitanian airs; how we wish to

SMALL-BEER CHRONICLE. 181

have credit for being stronger, braver, more beautiful,
more worthy than we really are.

Nay, the beginning of this hypocrisy — a desire to
excel, a desire to be hearty, fruity, generous, strength-
imparting — is a virtuous and noble ambition ; and it
is most difficult for a man in his own case, or his
neighbor's, to say at what point this ambition trans-
gresses the boundary of virtue, and becomes vanity,
pretense, and self-seeking. You are a poor man, let
us say, showing a bold face to adverse fortune, and
wearing a confident aspect. Your purse is very nar-
row, but you owe no man a penny ; your means are
scanty, but your wife's gown is decent ; your old coat
well brushed ; your children at a good school ; you
grumble to no one ; ask favors of no one ; truckle to
no neighbors on account of their superior rank, or (a
worse, and a meaner, and a more common crime still)
envy none for their better fortune. To all outward
appearances you are as well to do as your neighbors,
who have thrice your income. There may be in this
case some little mixture of pretension in your life and
behavior. You certainly do put on a smiling face
while fortune is pinching you. Your wife and girls,
so smart and neat at evening parties, are cutting,
patching, and cobbling all day to make both ends of
life's haberdashery meet. You give a friend a bottle
of wine on occasion, but are content yourself with a
glass of whisky and water. You avoid a cab, saying
that of all things you like to walk home after dinner
(which you know, my good friend, is a fib). I grant
you that in this scheme of life there does enter ever so
little hypocrisy ; that this claret is loaded, as it were ;

182 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

but your desire to portify yourself is amiable, is par-
donable, is perhaps honorable ; and were there no oth-
er hypocrisies than yours in the world, we should be
a set of worthy fellows ; and sermonizers, moralizers,
satirizers, would have to hold their tongues, and go to
some other trade to get a living.

But you know you will step over that boundary-
line of virtue and modesty into the district where
humbug and vanity begin, and there the moralizer
catches you and makes an example of you. For in-
stance, in a certain novel in another place my friend
Mr. Talbot Twysden is mentioned — a man whom you
and I know to be a wretched ordinaire, but who per-
sists in treating himself as if he was the finest '20 port.
In our Britain there are hundreds of men like him,
forever striving to swell beyond their natural size, to
strain beyond their natural strength, to step beyond
their natural stride. Search — search within your own
waistcoats, dear brethren ; you know in your hearts
which of your ordinaire qualities you would pass off,
and fain consider as first-rate port? And why not
you yourself, Mr. Preacher? says the congregation.
Dearly beloved, neither in nor out of this pulpit do I
profess to be bigger, or cleverer, or wiser, or better
than any of you. A short while since, a certain Ke-
viewer announced that I gave myself great pretensions
as a philosopher. I a philosopher ! I advance pre-
tensions ! My dear Saturday friend ; and you ? Don't
you teach every thing to every body ? and punish the
naughty boys if they don't learn as you bid them?
You teach politics to Lord John and Mr. Gladstone.
You teach poets how to write ; painters how to paint ;

SMALL-BEER CHRONICLE. 183

gentlemen, manners ; and opera-dancers how to pirou-
ette. I was not a little amused of late by an instance
of the modesty of our Saturday friend, who, more
Athenian than the Athenians, and apropos of a Greek
book by a Greek author, sat down and gravely showed
the Greek gentleman how to write his own language.

No, I do not, as far as I know, try to be port at all ;
but offer in these presents a sound, genuine ordinaire,
at 18s. per doz. let us say, grown on my own hill-side,
and offered de bon coeur to those who will sit down
under my tonndle, and have a half-hour's drink and
gossip. It is none of your hot porto, my friend. I
know there is much better and stronger liquor else-
where. Some pronounce it sour ; some say it is thin ;
some that it has wofully lost its flavor. This may or
may not be true. There are good and bad years;
years that surprise every body ; years of which the
produce is small and bad, or rich and plentiful. But
if my tap is not genuine it is naught, and no man
should give himself the trouble to drink it. I do not
even say that I would be port if I could, knowing that
port (by which I would imply much stronger, deeper,
richer, and more durable liquor than my vineyard can
furnish) is not relished by all palates, or suitable to all
heads. We will assume then, dear brother, that you
and I are tolerably modest people ; and, ourselves be-
ing thus out of the question, proceed to show how pre-
tentious our neighbors are, and how very many of
them would be port if they could.

Have you never seen a small man from college
placed among great folk, and giving himself the airs
of a man of fashion ? He goes back to his common

184 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

room with fond reminiscences of Ermine Castle or
Strawberry Hall. He writes to the dear countess to
say that dear Lord Lollypop is getting on very well at
St. Boniface, and that the accident which he met with
in a scuffle with an inebriated bargeman only showed
his spirit and honor, and will not permanently disfig-
ure his lordship's nose. He gets his clothes from dear
Lollypop's London tailor, and wears a mauve or ma-
genta tie when he rides out to see the hounds. A love
of fashionable people is a weakness, I do not say of
all, but of some tutors. Witness that Eton tutor t'other
day, who intimated that in Cornhill we could not un-
derstand the perfect purity, delicacy, and refinement
of those genteel families who sent their sons to Eton.
Oh usher, mon ami ! Old Sam Johnson, who, too, had
been an usher in his early life, kept a little of that
weakness always. Suppose Goldsmith had knocked
him up at three in the morning and proposed a boat
to Greenwich, as Topham Beauclerc and his friend did,
would he have said, " What, my boy, are you for a
frolic? I'm with you!" and gone and put on his
clothes? Eather he would have pitched poor Gold-
smith down stairs. He would have liked to be port
if he could. Of course we wouldn't. Our opinion of
the Portugal grape is known. It grows very high,
and is very sour, and we don't go for that kind of grape
at all.

" I was walking with Mr. Fox" — and sure this anec-
dote comes very pat after the grapes — " I was walking
with Mr. Fox in the Louvre," says Benjamin West
(apud some paper I have just been reading), " and I
remarked how many people turned round to look at

SMALL-BEER CHRONICLE. 185

me. This shows the respect of the French for the fine
arts." This is a curious instance of a very small claret
indeed, which imagined itself to be port of the stron-
gest body. There are not many instances of a faith so
deep, so simple, so satisfactory as this. I have met
with many who would like to be port, but with few
of the Gascon sort, who absolutely believe they were
port. George III. believed in West's port, and thought
Eeynolds's overrated stuff. When I saw West's pic-
tures at Philadelphia, I looked at them with astonish-
ment and awe. Hide, blushing glory, hide your head
under your old night-cap. Oh immortality ! is this
the end of you ? Did any of you, my dear brethren,
ever try and read Blackmore's Poems, or the Epics of
Baour-Lormian, or the Henriade, or — what shall we
say ? — Pollok's Course of Time ? They were thought
to be more lasting than brass by some people, and
where are they now ? And our masterpieces of liter-
ature— our ports — that, if not immortal, at any rate are
to last their fifty, their hundred years — oh, sirs, don't
you think a very small cellar will hold them ?

Those poor people in brass, on pedestals, hectoring
about Trafalgar Square and that neighborhood, don't
you think many of them — apart even from the ridic-
ulous execution — cut rather a ridiculous figure, and
that we are too eager to set up our ordinaire heroism
and talent for port ? A Duke of Wellington or two
I will grant, though even of these idols a moderate
supply will be sufficient. Some years ago a famous
and witty French critic was in London, with whom I
walked the streets. I am ashamed to say that I in-
formed him (being in hopes that he was about to write

186 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

some papers regarding the manners and customs of
this country) that all the statues he saw represented
the Duke of Wellington. That on the arch opposite
Apsley House ? the duke in a cloak, and cocked hat,
on horseback. That behind Apsley House in an airy
fig-leaf costume ? the duke again. That in Cockspur
Street ? the duke with a pigtail — and so on. I showed
him an army of dukes. There are many bronze he-
roes who after a few years look already as foolish,
awkward, and out of place as a man, say at Shool-
bred's or Swan and Edgar's. For example, those
three Grenadiers in Pall Mall, who have been up only
a few months, don't you pity those unhappy house-
hold troops, who have to stand frowning and looking
fierce there, and think they would like to step down
and go to barracks ? That they fought very bravely
there is no doubt ; but so did the Russians fight very
bravely ; and the French fight very bravely ; and so
did Colonel Jones and the 99th, and Colonel Brown
and the 100th ; and I say again that ordinaire should
not give itself port airs, and that an honest ordinaire
would blush to be found swaggering so. I am sure if
you could consult the Duke of York, who is impaled
on his column between the two clubs, and ask his late
Royal Highness whether he thought he ought to re-
main there, he would say no. A brave, worthy man,
not a braggart or boaster, to be put upon that heroic
perch must be painful to him. Lord George Bentinck,
I suppose, being in the midst of the family park in
Cavendish Square, may conceive that he has a right
to remain in his place. But look at William of Cum-
berland, with his hat cocked over his eye, prancing be-

SMALL-BEER CHRONICLE. 187

bind Lord George on his Roman-nosed charger; he,
depend on it, would be for getting off his horse if he
had the permission. He did not hesitate about trifles,
as we know, but he was a very truth-telling and hon-
orable soldier ; and as for heroic rank and statuesque
dignity, I would wager a dozen of '20 port against a
bottle of pure and sound Bordeaux, at 18s. per dozen
(bottles included), that he never would think of claim-
ing any such absurd distinction. They have got a
statue of Thomas Moore at Dublin, I hear. Is he on
horseback ? Some men should have, say, a fifty years'
lease of glory. After a while some gentlemen now in
brass should go to the melting furnace, and reappear
in some other gentleman's shape. Lately I saw that
Melville column rising over Edinburgh ; come, good
men and true, don't you feel a little awkward and un-
easy when you walk under it? Who was this to
stand in heroic places? and is yon the man whom
Scotchmen most delight to honor? I must own def-
erentially that there is a tendency in North Britain to
overesteem its heroes. Scotch ale is very good and
strong, but it is not stronger than all the other beer in
the world, as some Scottish patriots would insist.
When there has been a war, and stout old Sandy
Sansculotte returns home from India or Crimea, what
a bagpiping, shouting, hurrahing, and self-glorification
takes place round about him ! You would fancy, to
hear M 'Orator after dinner, that the Scotch had fought
all the battles, killed all the Russians, Indian rebels,
or what not. In Cupar-Fife there's a little inn called
the " Battle of Waterloo," and what do you think the
sign is ? (I sketch from memory, to be sure.) " The

188 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

Battle of Waterloo" is one broad Scotchman laying
about him with a broadsword. Yes, yes, my dear

Mac, you are wise, you are good, you are clever, you
are handsome, you are brave, you are rich, etc., but so
is Jones over the border. Scotch salmon is good, but
there are other good fish in the sea. I once heard a
Scotchman lecture on poetry in London. Of course
the pieces he selected were chiefly by Scottish authors,
and Walter Scott was his favorite poet. I whispered
to my neighbor, who was a Scotchman (by the way,
the audience were almost all Scotch, and the room was
All-Mac's — I beg your pardon, but I couldn't help it,
I really couldn't help it), " The professor has said the
best poet was a Scotchman : I wager that he will say
the worst poet was a Scotchman too." And sure
enough, that worst poet, when he made his appear-
ance, was a Northern Briton.

And as we are talking of bragging, and I am on my

SMALL-BEER CHRONICLE. 189

travels, can I forget one mighty republic — one — two
mighty republics, where people are notoriously fond
of passing off their claret for port ? I am very glad,
for the sake of a kind friend, that there is a great and
influential party in the United, and, I trust, in the
Confederate States, who believe that Catawba wine is
better than the best Champagne. Opposite that fa-
mous old White House at "Washington, whereof I
shall ever have a grateful memory, they have set up
an equestrian statue of General Jackson, by a self-
taught American artist of no inconsiderable genius and
skill. At an evening party a member of Congress
seized me in a corner of the room, and asked me if I
did not think this was the finest equestrian statue in the
world? How was I to deal with this plain question,
put to me in a corner ? I was bound to reply, and
accordingly said that I did not think it was the finest
statue in the world. " Well, sir," says the member of

Congress, "but you must remember that Mr. M

had never seen a statue when he made this !" I sug-
gested that to see other statues might do Mr. M

no harm. Nor was any man more willing to own his
defects, or more modest regarding his merits, than the
sculptor himself, whom I met subsequently. But, oh !
what a charming article there was in a Washington
paper next day about the impertinence of criticism
and offensive tone of arrogance which Englishmen
adopted toward men and works of genius in America !
"Who was this man, who, etc., etc." The Washing-
ton writer was angry because I would not accept this
American claret as the finest port wine in the world.
Ah me ! It is about blood, and not wine, that the
quarrel now is, and who shall foretell its end?

190 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

How much claret that would be port if it could is
handed about in every society ! In the House of
Commons, what small-beer orators try to pass for
strong ! Stay ! have I a spite against any one ? It
is a fact that the wife of the member for Bungay has
left off asking me and Mrs. Eoundabout to her even-
ing parties. Now is the time to have a slap at him.
I will say that he was always overrated, and that now
he is lamentably falling off from what he has been.
I will back the member for Stoke Pogis against him,
and show that the dashing young member for Isling-
ton is a far sounder man than either. Have I any
little literary animosities ? Of course not. Men of
letters never have. Otherwise, how I could serve out
a competitor here, make a face over his works, and
show that his would-be port is very meagre ordi-
naire indeed ! Nonsense, man ! Why so squeam-
ish ? Do they spare you ? Now you have the whip
in your hand, won't you lay on ? You used to be a
pretty whip enough as a young man, and liked it too.
Is there no enemy who would be the better for a lit-
tle thonging ? No. I have militated in former times,
not without glory ; but I grow peaceable as I grow
old. And if I have a literary enemy, why, he will
probably write a book ere long, and then it will be
his turn, and my favorite review will be down upon
him.

My brethren, these sermons are professedly short ;
for I have that opinion of my dear congregation
which leads me to think that, were I to preach at
great length, they would yawn, stamp, make noises,
and perhaps go straightway out of church ; and yet

SMALL-BEER CHRONICLE. 191

with this text I protest I could go on for hours.
What multitudes of men, what multitudes of women,
my dears, pass off their ordinaire for port, their small
beer for strong ! In literature, in politics, in the army,
the navy, the Church, at the bar, in the world, what
an immense quantity of cheap liquor is made to do
service for better sorts ! Ask Sergeant Kowland his
opinion of Oliver, Q. C. " Ordinaire, my good fel-
low, ordinaire, with a port-wine label !" Ask Oliver
his opinion of Eowland. Never was a man so over-
rated by the world and by himself. Ask Tweedle-
dumski his opinion of Tweedledeestein's performance.
"A quack, my tear sir! an ignoramus, I geef you my
vort ! He gombose an opera ! He is not fit to make
dance a bear!" Ask Paddington and Buckmister,
those two " swells" of fashion, what they think of each
other. They are notorious ordinaire. You and I
remember when they passed for very small wine, and
now how high and mighty they have become ! What
do you say to Tomlans's sermons? Ordinaire, try-
ing to go down as orthodox port, and very meagre
ordinaire too! To Hopkins's historical works? to
Pumkins's poetry ? Ordinaire, ordinaire again — thin,
feeble, overrated ; and so down the whole list. And
when we have done discussing our men friends, have
we not all the women ? Do these not advance absurd
pretensions? Do these never give themselves airs?
With feeble brains, don't they often set up to be es-
prits forts? Don't they pretend to be women of fash-
ion, and cut their betters ? Don't they try and pass
off their ordinary -looking girls as beauties of the first
order ? Every man in his circle knows women who

192 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

give themselves airs, and to whom we can apply the
port-wine simile.

Come, my friends, here is enough of ordinaire and
port for to-day. My bottle has run out. Will any
body have any more ? Let us go up stairs, and get a
cup of tea from the ladies.

OGRES.

193

OGRES.

DAKE say the reader
has remarked that the
upright and independ-
ent vowel,which stands
in the vowel -list be-
tween E and O, has
formed the subject of
the main part of these
essays. How does4hat
vowel feel this morn-
ing?— fresh, good-hu-
mored, and lively ?
The Eoundabout.lines
which fall from this
pen are correspond-
ingly brisk and cheer-
ful. Has any thing, on
the contrary, disagreed
with the vowel ? Has
its rest been disturbed,
or was yesterday's din-
ner too good, or yester-
day's wine not good enough? Under such circum-
stances, a darkling, misanthropic tinge, no doubt, is
cast upon the paper. The jokes, if attempted, arc

194 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

elaborate and dreary. The bitter temper breaks out.
That sneering manner is adopted, which you know,
and which exhibits itself so especially when the writer
is speaking about women. A moody carelessness
comes over him. He sees no good in any body or
thing, and treats gentlemen, ladies, history, and things
in general with a like gloomy flippancy. Agreed.
When the vowel in question is in that mood, if you
like airy gayety and tender gushing benevolence — if
you want to be satisfied with yourself and the rest of
your fellow-beings, I recommend you, my dear crea-
ture, to go to some other shop in Cornhill, or turn to
some other article. There are moods in the mind of
the vowel of which we are speaking when it is ill-
conditioned and captious. Who always keeps good
health and good-humor? Do not philosophers grum-
ble? Are not sages sometimes out of temper? and
do not an gel- women go off in tantrums ? To-day my
mood is dark. I scowl as I dip my pen in the ink-
stand.

Here is the day come round, for every thing here
is done with the utmost regularity : intellectual labor,
sixteen hours ; meals, thirty -two minutes ; exercise, a
hundred and forty-eight minutes; conversation with
the family, chiefly literary, and about the housekeep-
ing, one hour and four minutes ; sleep, three hours
and fifteen minutes (at the end of the month, when
the Magazine is complete, I own I take eight minutes
more) ; and the rest for the toilette and the world.
Well, I say, the Roundabout Paper Day being come,
and the subject long since settled in my mind — an ex-
cellent subject — a most telling, lively, and popular

OGRES. 195

subject — I go to breakfast determined to finish that
meal in 9£ minutes, as usual, and then retire to my
desk and work, when — oh, provoking ! — here in the
paper is the very subject treated on which I was go-
ing to write ! Yesterday another paper which I saw
treated it, and of course, as I need not tell you, spoiled
it. Last Saturday, another paper had an article on the
subject; perhaps you may guess what it was, but I
won't tell you. Only this is true, my favorite subject,
which was about to make the best paper we have had
for a long time — my bird, my game that I was going
to shoot and serve up with such a delicate sauce, has
been found by other sportsmen, and pop, pop, pop, a
half dozen of guns have banged at it, mangled it, and
brought it down.

"And can't you take some other text," say you.
All this is mighty well. But if you have set your
heart on a certain dish for dinner, be it cold boiled
veal, or what you will, and they bring you turtle and
venison, don't you feel disappointed ? During your
walk you have been making up your mind that that
cold meat, with moderation and a pickle, will be a very
sufficient dinner ; you have accustomed your thoughts
to it ; and here, in place of it, is a turkey, surrounded
by coarse sausages, or a reeking pigeon-pie, or a ful-
some roast pig. I have known many a good and kind
man made furiously angry by such a contretemps. I
have known him lose his temper, call his wife and
servants names, and a whole household made miser-
able. If, then, as is notoriously the case, it is too dan-
gerous to balk a man about his dinner, how much
more about his article ? I came to my meal with an

196 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

ogre-like appetite and gusto. Fee, faw, fum ! Wife,
where is that tender little Princekin? Have you
trussed him, and did you stuff him nicely, and have
you taken care to baste him and do him, not too brown,
as I told you ? Quick ! I am hungry ! I begin to
whet my knife, to roll my eyes about, and roar and
clap my huge chest like a gorilla ; and then my poor
Ogrina has to tell me that the little princes have all
run away while she was in the kitchen making the
paste to bake them in ! I pause in the description.
I won't condescend to report the bad language which
you know must ensue when an ogre, whose mind is
ill regulated, and whose habits of self-indulgence are
notorious, finds himself disappointed of his greedy
hopes. What treatment of his wife, what abuse and
brutal behavior to his children, who, though ogrillons,
are children ! My dears, you may fancy, and need
not ask my delicate pen to describe, the language and
behavior of a vulgar, coarse, greedy, large man with
an immense mouth and teeth, which are too frequent-
ly employed in the gobbling and crunching of raw
man's meat.

And in this circuitous way you see I have reached
my present subject, which is Ogres. You fancy they
are dead or only fictitious characters — mythical repre-
sentatives of strength, cruelty, stupidity, and lust for
blood? Though they had seven-leagued boots, you
remember all sorts of little whipping-snapping Tom
Thumbs used to elude and outrun them. They were
so stupid that they gave into the most shallow ambus-
cades and artifices : witness that well-known ogre, who,
because Jack cut open the hasty-pudding, instantly

OGRES. 197

ripped open his own stupid waistcoat and interior.
They were cruel, brutal, disgusting with their sharp-
ened teeth, immense knives, and roaring voices, but
they always ended by being overcome by little Tom
Thumbkins, or some other smart little champion.

Yes, they were conquered in the end, there is no
doubt. They plunged headlong (and uttering the most
frightful bad language) into some pit where Jack came
with his smart couteau de chasse and whipped their
brutal heads off. They would be going to devour
maidens —

But ever when it seemed

Their need was at the sorest,
A knight, in armor bright,

Came riding through the forest —

and down, after a combat, would go the brutal per-
secutor, with a lance through his midriff. Yes, I say,
this is very true and well. But you remember that
round the ogre's cave the ground was covered for
hundreds and hundreds of yards with the bones of the
victims whom he had lured into the castle. Many
knights and maids came to him and perished under
his knife and teeth. Were dragons the same as ogres ?
monsters dwelling in caverns, whence they rushed, at-
tired in plate armor, wielding pikes and torches, and
destroying stray passengers who passed by their lair ?
Monsters, brutes, rapacious tyrants, ruffians as they
were, doubtless they ended by being overcome. * But,
before they were destroyed, they did a deal of mis-
chief. The bones round their caves were countless.
They had sent many brave souls to Hades before their
own fled, howling out of their rascal carcasses, to the
same place of gloom.

198 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

There is no greater mistake than to suppose that
fairies, champions, distressed damsels, and, by conse-
quence, ogres, have ceased to exist. It may not be
ogreable to them (pardon the horrible pleasantry, but,
as I am writing in the solitude of my chamber, I am
grinding my teeth — yelling, roaring, and cursing —
brandishing my scissors and paper-cutter, and, as it
were, have become an ogre). I say there is no great-
er mistake than to suppose that ogres have ceased to
exist. We all know ogres. Their caverns are round
us and about us. There are the castles of several ogres
within a mile of the spot where I write. I think some
of them suspect I am an ogre myself. I am not, but
I know they are. I visit them. I don't mean to say
that they take a cold roast prince out of the cupboard,
and have a cannibal feast before me. But I see the
bones lying about the roads to their houses, and in the
areas and gardens. Politeness, of course, prevents me
from making any remarks; but I know them well
enough. One of the ways to know 'em is to watch
the scared looks of the ogres' wives and children.
They lead an awful life. They are present at dread-
ful cruelties. In their excesses those ogres will stab
about, and kill not only strangers who happen to call
in and ask a night's lodging, but they will outrage,
murder, and chop up their own kin. We all know
ogres, I say, and have been in their dens often. It is
not necessary that ogres who ask you to dine should
offer their guests the peculiar dish which they like.
They can not always get a Tom Thumb family. They
eat mutton and beef too, and I dare say even go out
to tea, and invite you to drink it. But I tell you there

OGRES. 199

are numbers of them going about in the world. And
now you have my word for it, and this little hint, it
is quite curious what an interest society may be made
to have for you, by your determining to find out the
ogres you meet there.

What does the man mean ? says Mrs. Downright,
to whom a joke is a very grave thing. I mean, mad-
am, that in the company assembled in your genteel
drawing-room, who bow here and there, and smirk in
white neckcloths, you receive men who elbow through
life successfully enough, but who are ogres in private :
men wicked, false, rapacious, flattering ; cruel hectors
at home ; smiling courtiers abroad ; causing wives,
children, servants, parents, to tremble before them,
and smiling and bowing as they bid strangers welcome
into their castles. I say, there are men who have
crunched the bones of victim after victim ; in whose
closets lie skeletons picked frightfully clean. When
these ogres come out into the world, you don't suppose
they show their knives and their great teeth? A
neat, simple white neckcloth, a merry, rather obsequi-
ous manner, a cadaverous look, perhaps, now and
again, and a rather dreadful grin ; but I know ogres
very considerably respected; and when you hint to
such and such a man, "My dear sir, Mr. Sharpus,
whom you appear to like, is, I assure you, a most
dreadful cannibal," the gentleman cries, " Oh, pshaw !
nonsense ! Dare say not so black as he is painted.
Dare say not worse than his neighbors." We con-
done every thing in this country — private treason,
falsehood, flattery, cruelty at home, roguery, and
double dealing — What? Do you mean to say in

200 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

your acquaintance you don't know ogres guilty of
countless crimes of fraud and force, and that, knowing
them, you don't shake hands with them, dine with
them at your table, and meet them at their own ? De-
pend upon it, in the time when there were real live
ogres in real caverns or castles, gobbling up real
knights and virgins — when they went into the world
— the neighboring market-town, let us say, or earl's
castle ; though their nature and reputation were pret-
ty well known, their notorious foibles were never al-
luded to. You would say, " What, Blunderbore, my
boy, how do you do ? How well and fresh you look !
What's the receipt you have for keeping so young and
rosy?" And your wife would softly ask after Mrs.
Blunderbore and the dear children. Or it would be,
" My dear Humguffln, try that pork. It is home-bred,
home-fed, and, I promise you, tender. Tell me if you
think it is as good as yours ? John, a glass of Bur-
gundy to Colonel Humguffin!" You don't suppose
there would be any unpleasant allusions to disagreea-
ble home-reports regarding Humgumn's manner of
furnishing his larder ? I say we all of us know ogres.
We shake hands and dine with ogres. And if incon-
venient moralists tell us we are cowards for our pains,
we turn round with a tu quoque, or say that we don't
meddle with other folk's affairs ; that people are much
less black than they are painted, and so on. What ?
Won't half the county go to Ogreham Castle ? Won't
some of the clergy say grace at dinner ? Won't the
mothers bring their daughters to dance with the young
Rawheads ? And if Lady Ogreham happens to die —
I won't say to go the way of all flesh, that is too re-

OGRES. 201

volting — I say if Ogreham is a widower, do you aver,
on your conscience and honor, that mothers will not
be found to offer their young girls to supply the la-
mented lady's place ? How stale this misanthropy is ?
Something must have disagreed with this cynic. Yes,
my good woman. I dare say you would like to call
another subject. Yes, my fine fellow ; ogre at home,
supple as a dancing-master abroad, and shaking in thy
pumps, and wearing a horrible grin of sham gayety to
conceal thy terror, lest I should point thee out : thou
art prosperous and honored, art thou? I say thou
hast been a tyrant and a robber. Thou hast plunder-
ed the poor. Thou hast bullied the weak. Thou hast
laid violent hands on the goods of the innocent and
confiding. Thou hast made a prey of the meek and
gentle who asked for thy protection. Thou hast been
hard to thy kinsfolk, and cruel to thy family. Go,
monster ! Ah ! when shall little Jack come and drill
daylight through thy wicked cannibal carcass ? I see
the ogre pass on, bowing right and left to the com-
pany ; and he gives a dreadful sidelong glance of sus-
picion as he is talking to my lord bishop in the corner
there.

Ogres in our days need not be giants at all. In for-
mer times, and in children's books, where it is neces-
sary to paint your moral in such large letters that
there can be no mistake about it, ogres are made with
that enormous mouth and ratelier which you know of,
and with which they can swallow down a baby, al-
most without using that great knife which they always
carry. They are too cunning nowadays. They go
about in society slim, small, quietly dressed, and show-

12

202 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

ing no especially great appetite. In my own young-
days there used to be play 'ogres — men who would
devour a young fellow in one sitting, and leave him
without a bit of flesh on his bones. They were quiet,
gentlemanlike-looking people. They got the young-
fellow into their cave. Champagne, pate de foie-gras,
and numberless good things, were handed about ; and
then, having eaten, the young man was devoured in
his turn. I believe these card and dice ogres have
died away almost as entirely as the hasty-pudding
giants whom Tom Thumb overcame. Now there are
ogres in city courts who lure you into . their dens.
About our Cornish mines I am told there are many
most plausible ogres, who tempt you into their cav-
erns and pick your bones there. In a certain newspa-
per there used to be lately a whole column of adver-
tisements from ogres who would put on the most
plausible, nay, piteous appearance, in order to inveigle
their victims. You would read, "A tradesman, estab-
lished for seventy years in the city, and known, and
much respected by Messrs. N. M. Bothschild and Bar-
ing Brothers, has pressing need for three pounds until
next Saturday. He can give security for half a mil-
lion, and forty thousand pounds will be given for the
use of the loan," and so on ; or, "An influential body
of capitalists are about to establish a company, of
which the business will be enormous and the profits
proportionately prodigious. They will require A sec-
retary, of good address and appearance, at a salary
of two thousand per annum. He need not be able to
write, but address and manners are absolutely neces-
sary. As a mark of confidence in the company, he

OGRES. 203

will have to deposit," etc., ; or, "A young widow (of
pleasing manners and appearance), who has a pressing
necessity for four pounds ten for three weeks, offers
her Erard's grand piano, valued at three hundred
guineas ; a diamond cross of eight hundred pounds ;
and board and lodging in her elegant villa near Ban-
bury Cross, with the best references and society, in re-
turn for the loan." I suspect these people are ogres.
There are ogres and ogres. Polyphemus was a great,
tall, one-eyed, notorious ogre, fetching his victims out
of a hole, and gobbling them one after another. There
could be no mistake about him. But so were the Si-
rens ogres — pretty blue-eyed things, peeping at you
coaxingly from out of the water, and singing their
melodious wheedles. And the bones round their
caves were more numerous than the ribs, skulls, and
thigh bones round the cavern of hulking Polypheme.

To the castle gates of some of these monsters up
rides the dapper champion of the pen ; puffs boldly
upon the horn which hangs by the chain ; enters the
hall resolutely, and challenges the big tyrant sulking
within. We defy him to combat, the enormous roar-
ing ruffian. "We give him a meeting on the green
plain before his castle. Green ? No wonder it should
be green : it is manured with human bones. After a
few graceful wheels and curvets, we take our ground.
We stoop over our saddle. 'Tis but to kiss the lock-
et of our lady-love's hair. And now the visor is up ;
the lance is in rest (Gillott's iron is the point for me).
A touch of the spur in the gallant sides of Pegasus,
and we gallop at the great brute.

"Cut off his ugly head, Flibbertygibbet, my squire !"

204 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

And who are these who pour out of the castle ? the
imprisoned maidens, the maltreated widows, the poor
old hoary grandfathers, who have been locked up in
the dungeons these scores and scores of years, writhing
under the tyranny of that ruffian ! Ah ! ye knights
of the pen, may honor be your shield, and truth tip
your lances! Be gentle to all gentle people. Be
modest to women. Be tender to children. And as
for the Ogre Humbug, out sword and have at him.

ON TWO ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, ETC. 205

ON TWO ROUNDABOUT PAPERS WHICH I
INTENDED TO WRITE.

We have all heard of a place paved with good in-
tentions— a place which I take to be a very dismal,
useless, and unsatisfactory terminus for many pleasant
thoughts, kindly fancies, gentle wishes, merry little

206 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

quips and pranks, harmless jokes, which die, as it were,
the moment of their birth. Poor little children of the
brain ! He was a dreary theologian who huddled you
under such a melancholy cenotaph, and laid you in
the vaults under the flagstones of Hades ! I trust that
some of the best actions we have all of us committed
in our lives have been committed in fancy. It is not
all wickedness we are thinking, que diable ! Some of
our thoughts are bad enough, I grant you. Many a
one you and I have had here below. Ah mercy,
what a monster! what crooked horns! what leering
eyes! what a flaming mouth! what cloven feet, and
what a hideous writhing tail! Oh, let us fall down
on our knees, repeat our most potent exorcisms, and
overcome the brute. Spread your black pinions —
fly — fly to the dusky realms of Eblis, and bury thy-
self under the paving-stones of his hall, dark genie !
But all thoughts are not so. No, no. There are the
pure ; there are the kind ; there are the gentle. There
are sweet unspoken thanks before a fair scene of na-
ture : at a sunsetting below a glorious sea ; or a moon
and a host of stars shining over it : at a bunch of
children playing in the street, or a group of flowers
by the hedge-side, or a bird singing there. At a
hundred moments or occurrences of the day good
thoughts pass through the mind, let us trust, which
never are spoken ; prayers are made which never are
said; and Te Deum is sung without church, clerk,
choristers, parson, or organ. Why, there's my ene-
my, who got the place I wanted ; who maligned me
to the woman I wanted to be well with ; who sup-
planted me in the good graces of my patron. I don't

207

say any thing about the matter ; but, my poor old en-
emy, in my secret mind I have movements of as ten-
der charity toward you, you old scoundrel, as ever I
had when we were boys together at school. You ruf-
fian ! do you fancy I forget that we were fond of each
other ? We are still. We share our toffy ; go halves
at the tuck-shop ; do each other's exercises ; prompt
each other with the word in construing or repetition ;
and tell the most frightful fibs to prevent each other
from being found out. We meet each other in pub-
lic. Ware a fight ! Get them into different parts of
the room! Our friends hustle round us. Capulet
and Montague are not more at odds than the houses
of Koundabout and Wrightabout, let us say. It is,
" My dear Mrs. Buffer, do kindly put yourself in the
chair between those two men !" Or, " My dear
Wrightabout, will you take that charming Lady
Blancmange down to supper? She adores your
poems ; and gave five shillings for your autograph at
the fancy fair." In like manner the peace-makers
gather round Eoundabout on his part; he is carried
to a distant corner, and coaxed out of the way of the
enemy with whom he is at feud.

When we meet in the square at Verona, out flash
rapiers, and we fall to. But in his private mind
Tybalt owns that Mercutio has a rare wit, and Mer-
cutio is sure that his adversary is a gallant gentleman.
Look at the amphitheatre yonder. You do not sup-
pose those gladiators who fought and perished, as
hundreds of spectators in that grim Circus held thumbs
down, and cried "Kill, kill!" — you do not suppose
the combatants of necessity hated each other? Fo

208 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

more than the celebrated trained bands of literary
sword-and-buckler men hate the adversaries whom
they meet in the arena. They engage at the given
signal; feint and parry; slash, poke, rip each other
open, dismember limbs, and hew off noses ; but in the
way of business, and, I trust, with mutual private es-
teem. For instance, I salute the warriors of the Su-
perfine Company with the honors due among war-
riors. Here's at you, Spartacus, my lad. A hit, I ac-
knowledge. A palpable hit ! Ha ! how do you like
that poke in the eye in return ? When the trumpets
sing truce, or the spectators are tired, we bow to the
noble company, withdraw, and get a cool glass of wine
in our rendezvous des braves gladiateurs.

By the way, I saw that amphitheatre of Yerona
under the strange light of a lurid eclipse some years
ago, and I have been there in spirit for these twenty
lines past, under a vast gusty awning, now with twen-
ty thousand fellow-citizens looking on from the bench-
es, now in the circus itself a grim gladiator with sword
and net, or a meek martyr — was I ? — brought out to
be gobbled up by the lions? or a huge shaggjr, tawny
lion myself, on whom the dogs were going to be set?
What a day of excitement I have had, to be sure !
But I must get away from Yerona, or who knows
how much farther the Eoundabout Pegasus may car-
ry me?

We were saying, my Muse, before we dropped and
perched on earth for a couple of sentences, that our
unsaid words were in some limbo or other as real as
those we have uttered ; that the thoughts which have
passed through our brains are as actual as any to

OX TWO ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, ETC. 209

which our tongues and pens have given currency.
For instance, besides what is here hinted at, I have
thought ever so much more about Verona ; about an
early Christian church I saw there ; about a great dish
of rice we had at the inn ; about the bugs there ; about
ever so many more details of that day's journey from
Milan to Venice; about Lake Garda, which lay on
the way from Milan, and so forth. I say what fine
things we have thought of, haven't we, all of us?
Ah ! what a line tragedy that was I thought of, and
never wrote ! On the day of the dinner of the Oys-
termongers' Company, what a noble speech I thought
of in the cab, and broke down — I don't mean the cab,
but the speech. Ah! if you could but read some of
the unwritten Roundabout Papers, how you would be
amused ! Aha ! my friend, I catch you saying, "Well,
then, I wish this was unwritten, with all my heart."
Very good. I owe you one. I do confess a hit, a
palpable hit.

One day in the past month, as I was reclining on
the bench of thought, with that ocean The Times news-
paper spread before me, the ocean cast up on the shore
at my feet two famous subjects for Roundabout Pa-
pers, and I picked up those waifs, and treasured them
away until I could polish them and bring them to
market. That scheme is not to be carried out. I
can't write about those subjects. And though I can
not write about them, I may surely tell what are the
subjects I am going not to write about.

The first was that Northumberland Street encoun-
ter which all the papers have narrated. Have any
novelists of our days a scene and catastrophe more

210 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

strange and terrible than that which occurs at noon-
day within a few yards of the greatest thoroughfare
in Europe? At the theatres they have a new name
for their melodramatic pieces, and call them M Sensa-
tion Dramas." What a sensation drama this is!
What have people been flocking to see at the Adel-
phi Theatre for the last hundred and fifty nights ? A
woman pitched overboard out of a boat, and a certain
Miles taking a tremendous " header," and bringing
her to shore? Bagatelle! What is this compared
to the real life drama, of which a midday representa-
tion takes place just opposite the Adelphi in North-
umberland Street? The brave Dumas, the intrepid
Ainsworth, the terrible Eugene Sue, the cold-shudder-
inspiring Woman in White, the astounding author of
the Mysteries of the Court of London, never invented
any thing more tremendous than this. It might have
happened to you and me. We want to borrow a lit-
tle money. We are directed to an agent. We pro-
pose a pecuniary transaction at a short date. He goes
into the next room, as we fancy, to get the bank-notes,
and returns with "two very pretty, delicate little
ivory-handled pistols," and blows a portion of our
heads off. After this, what is the use of being squeam-
ish about the probabilities and possibilities in the
writing of fiction ? Years ago I remember making
merry over a play of Dumas, called Kean, in which
the Coal-Hole Tavern was represented on the Thames,
with a fleet of pirate-ships moored alongside. Pirate
ships? Why not? What a cavern of terror was this
in Northumberland Street, with its splendid furniture
covered with dust, its empty bottles, in the midst of

ON TWO ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, ETC. 211

which sits a grim "agent," amusing himself by firing
pistols, aiming at the unconscious mantle-piece, or at
the heads of his customers !

After this, what is not possible? It is possible
Hungerford Market is mined, and will explode some
day. Mind how you go in for a penny ice unawares.
" Pray step this way," says a quiet person at the door.
You enter — into a back room — a quiet room — rather
a dark room. "Pray take your place in a chair."
And she goes to fetch the penny ice. Malheureux!
The chair sinks down with you — sinks, and sinks, and
sinks — a large wet flannel suddenly envelops your
face and throttles you. Need we say more? After
Northumberland Street, what is improbable ? Surely
there is no difficulty in crediting Bluebeard. I with-
draw my last month's opinions about ogres. Ogres ?
Why not? I protest I have seldom contemplated
any thing more terribly ludicrous than this " agent"
in the dingy splendor of his den, surrounded by dusty
ormolu and piles of empty bottles, firing pistols for
his diversion at the mantle-piece until his clients come
in ! Is pistol practice so common in Northumberland
Street that it passes without notice in the lodging-
houses there ?

We speak anon of good thoughts. About bad
thoughts? Is there some Northumberland Street
chamber in your heart and mine, friend, close to the
every-day street of life, visited by daily friends, visit-
ed by people on business, in which affairs are trans-
acted, jokes are uttered, wine is drunk ; through which
people come and go, wives and children pass, and in
which murder sits unseen until the terrible moment

212 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

when he rises up and kills ? A farmer, say, has a gun
over the mantle-piece in his room where he sits at his
daily meals and rest, caressing his children, joking
with his friends, smoking his pipe in his calm. One
night the gun is taken down, the farmer goes out, and
it is a murderer who comes back and puts the piece
up and drinks by that fireside. Was he a murderer
yesterday when he was tossing the baby on his knee,
and when his hands were playing with his little girl's
yellow hair ? Yesterday there was no blood on them
at all ; they were shaken by honest men ; have done
many a kind act in their time very likely. He leans
his head on one of them, the wife comes in with her
anxious looks of welcome, the children are prattling
as they did yesterday round the father's knee at the
fire, and Cain is sitting by the embers, and Abel lies
dead on the moor. Think of the gulf between now
and yesterday. Oh, yesterday ! Oh, the days when
those two loved each other, and said their prayers
side by side ! He goes to sleep, perhaps, and dreams
that his brother is alive. Be true, oh dream ! Let him
live in dreams, and wake no more. Be undone, oh
crime, oh crime ! But the sun rises ; and the officers
of conscience come ; and yonder lies the body on the
moor. I happened to pass, and looked at the North-
umberland Street house the other day. A few loiter-
ers were gazing up at the dingy windows. A plain,
ordinary face of a house enough ; and in a chamber
in it one man suddenly rose up, pistol in hand, to
slaughter another. Have you ever killed any one in
your thoughts ? Has your heart compassed any man's
death ? In your mind, have you ever taken a brand

213

from the altar, and slain your brother? How many
plain, ordinary faces of men do we look at, unknow-
ing of murder behind those eyes ? Lucky for you
and me, brother, that we have good thoughts un-
spoken. But the bad ones ? I tell you that the sight
of those blank windows in Northumberland Street —
through which, as it were, my mind could picture the
awful tragedy glimmering behind — set me thinking,
11 Mr. Street Preacher, here is a text for one of your
pavement sermons. But it is too glum and serious.
You eschew dark thoughts, and desire to be cheerful
and merry in the main." And, such being the case,
you see we must have no Koundabout Essay on this
subject.

Well, I had another arrow in my quiver. (So, you
know, had William Tell a bolt for his son, the apple
of his eye, and a shaft for Gessler in case William
came to any trouble with the first poor little target.)
And this, I must tell you, was to have been a rare
Eoundabout performance — one of the very best that
has ever appeared in this series. It was to have con-
tained all the deep pathos of Addison, the logical preci-
sion of Rabelais, the childlike playfulness of Swift, the
manly stoicism of Sterne, the metaphysical depth of
Goldsmith, the blushing modesty of Fielding, the epi-
grammatic terseness of Walter Scott, the uproarious
humor of Sam Richardson, the gay simplicity of Sam
Johnson — it was to have combined all these qualities,
with some excellencies of modern writers whom I
could name ; but circumstances have occurred which
have rendered this Roundabout Essay also impossible.

I have not the least objection to tell you what was

214 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

to have been the subject of that other admirable
Roundabout Paper. Gracious powers! the Dean of
St. Patrick's never had a better theme. The paper
was to have been on the Gorillas, to be sure. I was
going to imagine myself to be a young surgeon-appren-
tice from Charleston, in South Carolina, who ran away"
to Cuba on account of unhappy family circumstances,
with which nobody has the least concern ; who sailed
thence to Africa in a large, roomy schooner, with an
extraordinary vacant space between decks. I was
subject to dreadful ill treatment from the first mate of
the ship, who, when I found she was a slaver, alto-
gether declined to put me on shore. I was chased —
we were chased — by three British frigates and a sev-
enty-four, which we engaged and captured, but were
obliged to scuttle and sink, as we could sell them in
no African port ; and I never shall forget the look of
manly resignation, combined with considerable dis-
gust, of the British admiral as he walked the plank,
after cutting off his pigtail, which he handed to me,
and which I still have in charge for his family at
Boston, Lincolnshire, England.

We made the port of Bpoopoo, at the confluence
of the Bun go and Sgglolo Rivers (which you may see
in Swammerdahl's map) on the 31st of April of last
year. Our passage had been so extraordinarily rapid,
owing to the continued drunkenness of the captain
and chief officers, by which I was obliged to work
the ship and take her in command, that we reached
Bpoopoo six weeks before we were expected, and five
before the cofYres from the interior and from the great
slave depot at Zbabblo were expected. Their delay

ON TWO ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, ETC. 215

caused us not a little discomfort, because, though we
had taken the six English ships, we knew that Sir
Byam Martin's iron-cased squadron, with the Warrior,
the Impregnable, the Sanclioniathon, and the Berosus.
were cruising in the neighborhood, and might prove
too much for us.

It not only became necessary to quit Bpoopoo be-
fore the arrival of the British fleet or the rainy season,
but to get our people on board as soon as might be.
While the chief mate, with a detachment of seamen,
hurried forward to the Pgogo Lake, where we expect-
ed a considerable part of our cargo, the second mate,
with six men, four chiefs. King Fbumbo, an Obi man,
and myself, went N.W. by W. toward King Mtoby's
town, where we knew many hundreds of our between-
deck passengers were to be got together. We went
down the Pdodo Kiver, shooting snipes, ostriches, and
rhinoceroses in plenty, and I think a few elephants,
until, by the advice of a guide, who I now believe was
treacherous, we were induced to leave the Pdodo, and
march N.E. by N.N. Here Lieutenant Larkins, who
had persisted in drinking rum from morning to night,
and thrashing me in his sober moments during the
whole journey, died, and I have too good reason to
know was eaten with much relish by the natives. At
Mgoo, where there are barracoons and a depot for our
cargo, we had no news of our expected freight; accord-
ingly, as time pressed exceedingly, parties were dis-
patched in advance toward the great Washaboo Lake,
by which the caravans usually come toward the coast.
Here we found no caravan, but only four negroes
down with ague, whom T treated, I am bound to say,

216 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

unsuccessfully, while we waited for our friends. We
used to take watch and watch in front of the place,
both to guard ourselves from attack, and get early
news of the approaching caravan.

At last, on the 23d of September, as I was in ad-
vance with Charles Eogers, second mate, and two na-
tives with bows and arrows, we were crossing a great
plain skirted by a forest, when we saw emerging from
a ravine what I took to be three negroes — a very tall
one, one of a moderate size, and one quite little.

Our native guides shrieked out some words in their
language, of which Charles Eogers knew something.
I thought it was the advance of the negroes whom we
expected. "No," said Eogers (who swore dreadfully
in conversation), "it is the Gorillas!" And he fired
both barrels. of his gun, bringing down the little one
first, and the female afterward.

The male, who was untouched, gave a howl that
you might hear a league off; advanced toward us as
if he would attack us, and turned and ran away with
inconceivable celerity toward the wood.

We went up toward the fallen brutes. The little
one by the female appeared to be about two years old.
It lay bleating and moaning on the ground, stretching
out its little hands, with movements and looks so
strangely resembling human, that my heart sickened
with pity. The female, who had been shot through
both legs, could not move. She howkd most hideous-
ly when I approached the little one.

" We must be off," said Eogers, " or the whole Go-
rilla race may be down upon us. The little one is
only shot in the leg, I said. I'll bind the limb up,
and we will carry the beast with us on board."

217

The poor little wretch held up its leg to show it
was wounded, and looked to me with appealing eyes.
It lay quite still while I looked for and found the bul-
let, and, tearing off a piece of my shirt, bandaged up
the wound. I was so occupied in this business that I
hardly heard Eogers cry, " Kun ! run !" and when I
looked up —

When I looked up, with a roar the most horrible I
ever heard — a roar? ten thousand roars — a whirling
army of dark beings rushed by me. Eogers, who had
bullied me so frightfully during the voyage, and who
had encouraged my fatal passion for play, so that I
own I owed him 1500 dollars, was overtaken, felled,
brained, and torn into ten thousand pieces ; and I dare
say the same fate would have fallen on me, but that
the little Gorilla, whose wound I had dressed, flung
its arms round my neck (their arms, you know, are
much longer than ours). And when an immense gray
Gorilla, with hardly any teeth, brandishing the trunk
of a gollybosh-tree about sixteen feet long, came up
to me roaring, the little one squeaked out something
plaintive, which of course I could not understand ; on
which suddenly the monster flung down his tree,
squatted down on his huge hams by the side of the
little patient, and began to bellow and weep.

And now, do you see whom I had rescued ? I had
rescued the young Prince of the Gorillas, who was out
walking with his nurse and footman. The footman
had run off to alarm his master, and certainly I never
saw a footman run quicker. The whole army of
Gorillas rushed forward to rescue their prince and
punish his enemies. If the King Gorilla's emotion

K *

218 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

was great, fancy what the queen's must have been
when she came up ! She arrived on a litter, neatly
enough made with wattled branches, on which she
lay, with her youngest child, a prince of three weeks
old.

My little protege with the wounded leg still per-
sisted in hugging me with its arms (I think I men-
tioned that they are longer than those of men in gen-
eral), and as the poor little brute was immensely
heavy, and the Gorillas go at a prodigious pace, a lit-
ter was made for us likewise, and my thirst much re-
freshed by a footman (the same domestic who had
given the alarm) running hand over hand up a cocoa-
nut-tree, tearing the rinds off, breaking the shell on
his head, and handing me the fresh milk in its cup.
My little patient partook of a little, stretching out its
dear little unwounded foot, with which, or with its
hand, a Gorilla can help itself indiscriminately. Be-
lays of large Gorillas relieved each other at the litters
at intervals of twenty minutes, as I calculated by my
watch — one of Jones and Bates's, of Boston, Mass. —
though I have been unable to this day to ascertain
how these animals calculate time with such surprising
accuracy. We slept for that night under —

And now you see we arrive at really the most in-
teresting part of my travels in the country which I
intended to visit, viz., the manners and habits of the
Gorillas dies eux. I give the heads of this narrative
only, the full account being suppressed for a reason
which shall presently be given. The heads, then, of
the chapters, are briefly as follows :

The author's arrival in the Gorilla country. Its geo-

ON TWO ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, ETC. 219

graphical position. Lodgings assigned to him up a gum-
tree. Constant attachment of the little prince. His royal
highnesses gratitude. Anecdotes of his wit, playfulness,
and extraordinary precocity. Am offered a portion of
poor Larkins for my supper, but decline with horror.
Footman brings me a young crocodile : fishy but very
palatable. Old crocodiles too tough: ditto rhinoceros.
Visit the queen mother — an enormous old Gorilla, quite
white. Prescribe for her majesty. Meeting of Gorillas
at ivhat appears a parliament among them; presided over
by old Gorilla in cocoa-nut-fibre wig. Their sports.
Their customs. A privileged class among them. Ex-
traordinary likeness of Gorillas to people at home, both
at Charleston, & C, my native place, and London, En-
gland, which I have visited. Flat-nosed Gorillas and
blue-nosed Gorillas ; their hatred, and wars between them.
In a part of the country (its geographical position de-
scribed) I see several negroes under Gorilla domination.
Well treated by their masters. Frog -eating Gorillas
across the Salt Lake. Bull-headed Gorillas — their mu-
tual hostility. Green Island Gorillas. More quarrel-
some than the Bull-heads, and howl much louder. I am
called to attend one of the princesses. Evident partiality
of H. R. H. for me. Jealousy and rage of large red-
headed Gorilla. How shall I escape !

Ay, how indeed? Do you wish to know? Is
your curiosity excited ? Well, I do know how I es-
caped. I could tell the most extraordinary adven-
tures that happened to me. I could show you re-
semblances to people at home, that would make them
blue with rage and you crack your sides with laugh-
ter And what is the reason I can not write

220 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

this paper, having all the facts before me ? The rea-
son is, that, walking down St. James's Street yester-
day, I met a friend who says to me, " Koundabout,
my boy, have you seen your picture ? Here it is !"
And he pulls out a portrait, executed in photography,
of your humble servant as an immense and most un-
pleasant-featured baboon, with long hairy hands, and
called by the waggish artist aA Literary Gorilla."
Oh horror ! And now you see why I can't play off
this joke myself, and moralize on the fable, as it has
been narrated already de me.

A MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE.

221

A MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE.

This initial group of dusky children of the captiv-
ity is copied out of a little sketch-book which I car-
ried in many a roundabout journey, and will point a
moral or adorn a T as well as any other sketch in the
volume. Yonder drawing was made in a country

222 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

where there was such hospitality, friendship, kindness
shown to the humble designer, that his eyes do not
care to look out for faults, or his pen to note them.
How they sang ; how they laughed and grinned ; how
they scraped, bowed, and complimented you and each
other, those negroes of the cities of the southern parts
of the then United States ! My business kept me in
the towns ; I was in but one negro plantation-village,
and there were only women and little children, the
men being out afield. But there was plenty of cheer-
fulness in the huts, under the great trees — I speak of
what I saw — and amid the dusky bondsmen of the
cities. I witnessed a curious gayety ; heard among
the black folk endless singing, shouting, and laughter;
and saw on holydays black gentlemen and ladies ar-
rayed in such splendor and comfort as freeborn work-
men in our towns seldom exhibit. What a grin and
bow that dark gentleman performed, who was the
porter at the colonel's, when he said, " You write your
name, mas'r, else I will forgot." I am not going into
the slavery question ; I am not an advocate for " the
institution," as I know, madam, by that angry toss of
your head, you are about to declare me to be. For
domestic purposes, my dear lady, it seemed to me
about the dearest institution that can be devised. In
a house in a Southern city you will find fifteen ne-
groes doing the work which John, the cook, the house-
maid, and the help, do perfectly in your own comfort-
able London house. And these fifteen negroes are
the pick of a family of some eighty or ninety. Twen-
ty are too sick or too old for work, let us say ; twenty
too clumsy ; twenty are too young, and have to be

A MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE. 223

nursed and watched by ten more.* And master has
to maintain the immense crew to do the work of half
a dozen willing hands. No, no ; let Mitchell, the ex-
ile from poor dear enslaved Ireland, wish for a gang
of "fat niggers;" I would as soon you should make
me a present of a score of Bengal elephants, when I
need but a single stout horse to pull my brougham.

How hospitable they were, those Southern men !
In the North itself the welcome was not kinder, as I,
who have eaten Northern and Southern salt, can tes-
tify. As for New Orleans, in spring-time — -just when
the orchards were flushing over with peach-blossoms,
and the sweet herbs came to flavor the juleps — it
seemed to me the city of the world where you can eat
and drink the most and suffer the least. At Bordeaux
itself, claret is not better to drink than at New Or-
leans. It was all good — believe an expert Eobert —
from the half-dollar Medoc of the public hotel table
to the private gentleman's choicest wine. Claret is,
somehow, good in that gifted place at dinner, at sup-
per, and at breakfast in the morning. It is good — it
is superabundant — and there is nothing to pay. Find
me speaking ill of such a country ! When I do, pone
me pigris campis ; smother me in a desert, or let Mis-
sissippi or Garonne drown me ! At that comfortable
tavern on Pontchartrain we had a bouillabaisse, than
which a better was never eaten at Marseilles ; and not
the least headache in the morning, I give you my

* This was an account given by a gentleman at Richmond of his
establishment. Six European servants would have kept his house
and stables well. "His farm," he said, " barely sufficed to maintain
the negroes residing on it."

224 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

word ; on the contrary, you only wake with a sweet
refreshing thirst for claret and water. They say there
is fever there in the autumn, but not in the spring-
time, when the peach-blossoms blush over the orchards,
and the sweet herbs come to flavor the juleps.

I was bound from New Orleans to Saint Louis;
and our walk was constantly on the Levee, whence
we could see a hundred of those huge white Missis-
sippi steamers at their moorings in the river: "Look,"
said my friend Lochlomond to me, as we stood one
day on the quay, "look at that post! Look at that
coffee-house behind it ! Sir, last year a steamer blew
up in the river yonder, just where you see those men
pulling off in the boat. By that post where you are
standing a mule was cut in two by a fragment of the
burst machinery, and a bit Of the chimney stove in
that first-floor window of the coffee-house, killing a
negro who was cleaning knives in the top-room !" I
looked at the post, at the coffee-house window, at the
steamer in which I was going to embark, at my friend,
with a pleasing interest not divested of melancholy.
Yesterday it was the donkey, thinks I, who was cut
in two ; it may be eras mihi. Why, in the same little
sketch-book, there is a drawing of an Alabama Eiver
steamer which blew up on the very next voyage after
that in which your humble servant was on board!
Had I but waited another week, I might have ....
These incidents give a queer zest to the voyage down
the life stream in America. When our huge, tall,
white, pasteboard castle of a steamer began to work
up stream, every limb in her creaked, and groaned,
and quivered, so that you might fancy she would

A MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE. 225

burst right off. Would she hold together, or would
she split into ten million of shivers ? Oh my home
and children! Would your humble servant's body
be cut in two across yonder chain on the Levee, or be
precipitated into yonder first floor, so as to damage the
chest of a black man cleaning boots at the window ?
The black man is safe for me, thank goodness. But
you see the little accident might have happened. It
has happened ; and if to a mule, why not to a more
docile animal ? On our journey up the Mississippi,
I give you my honor we were on fire three times, and
burned our cook-room down. The deck at night was
a great fire- work: the chimney spouted myriads of
stars, which fell blackening on our garments, spark-
ling on to the deck, or gleaming into the mighty
stream through which we labored — the mighty yel-
low stream with all its snags.

How I kept up my courage through these dangers
shall now be narrated. The excellent landlord of the
Saint Charles Hotel, when I was going away, begged
me to accept two bottles of the very finest Cognac,
with his compliments ; and I found them in my state-
room with my luggage. Lochlomond came to see me
off, and as he squeezed my hand at parting, "Bound-
about," says he, " the wine mayn't be very good on
board, so I have brought a dozen-case of the Mddoc
which you liked ;" and we grasped together the hands
of friendship and farewell. Whose boat is this pull-
ing up to the ship ? It is our friend Glenlivat, who
gave us the dinner on Lake Pontchartrain. " Kound-
about," says he, " we have tried to do what we could
for you, my boy, and it has been done de bon cceur"
K2

226 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

(I detect a kind tremulousness in the good fellow's
voice as he speaks). " I say — hem ! — the a — the wine
isn't too good on board, so I've brought you a dozen
of Medoc for your voyage, you know. And God
bless you; and when I come to London in May I
shall come and see you. Hallo ! here*s Johnson come
to see you off too !"

As I am a miserable sinner, when Johnson grasped
my hand, he said, " Mr. Eoundabout, you can't be sure
of the wine on board these steamers, so I thought I
would bring you a little case of that light claret which
you liked at my house. Et de trois ! No wonder I
could face the Mississippi with so much courage sup-
plied to me! Where are you, honest friends, who
gave me of your kindness and your cheer ? May 1
be considerably boiled, blown up, and snagged, if I
speak hard words of you. May claret turn sour ere
I do!

Mounting the stream, it chanced that we had very
few passengers. How far is the famous city of Mem-
phis from New Orleans? I do not mean the Egyptian
Memphis, but the American Memphis, from which to
the American Cairo we slowly toiled up the river — to
the American Cairo at the confluence of the Ohio and
Mississippi Eivers. And at Cairo we parted com-
pany from the boat, and from some famous and gifted
fellow - passengers who joined us at Memphis, and
whose pictures we had seen in many cities of the
South. I do not give the names of these remarkable
people, unless, by some wondrous chance, in invent-
ing a name I should light upon that real one which
some of them bore ; but, if you please, I will say that

A MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE. 227

our fellow-passengers whom we took in at Memphis
were no less personages than the Vermont Giant and
the famous Bearded Lady of Kentucky and her son.
Their pictures I had seen in many cities through which
I traveled with my own little performance. I think
the Vermont Giant was a trifle taller in his pictures
than he was in life (being represented in the former as
at least some two stories high); but the lady's pro-
digious beard received no more than justice at the
hands of the painter ; that portion of it which I saw
being really most black, rich, and curly — I say the
portion of beard, for this modest or prudent woman
kept I don't know how much of the beard covered up
with a red handkerchief, from which I suppose it only
emerged when she went to bed, or when she exhibited
it professionally.

The Giant, I must think, was an overrated giant.
I have known gentlemen, not in the profession, better
made, and I should say taller, than the Vermont gen-
tleman. A strange feeling I used to have at meals,
when, on looking round our little society, I saw the
Giant, the Bearded Lady of Kentucky, the little
Bearded Boy of three years old, the Captain (this I
think; but at this distance of time I would not like to
make the statement on affidavit), and the three other
passengers, all with their knives in their mouths mak-
ing play at the dinner — a strange feeling I say it was,
and as though I was in a castle of ogres. But, after
all, why so squeamish ? A few scores of years back,
the finest gentlemen and ladies of Europe did the like.
Belinda ate with her knife ; and Saccharissa had only
that weapon, or a two-pronged fork, or a spoon, for

228 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

her pease. Have you ever looked at Gilray's print
of the Prince of Wales, a languid voluptuary, retir-
ing after his meal, and noted the toothpick which he
uses ? . . . . You are right, madam, I own that
the subject is revolting and terrible. I will not pur-
sue it. Only — allow that a gentleman, in a shaky
steam-boat, on a dangerous river, in a far-off country,
which caught fire three times during the voyage —
(of course I mean the steam-boat, not the country),
seeing a giant, a voracious supercargo, a bearded lady,
and a little boy, not three years of age, with a chin al-
ready quite black and curly, all plying their victuals
down their throats with their knives — allow, madam,
that in such a company a man had a right to feel a
little nervous. I don't know whether you have ever
remarked the Indian jugglers swallowing their knives,
or seen, as I have, a whole table of people performing
the same trick, but if you look at their eyes when
they do it, I assure you there is a roll in them which
is dreadful.

Apart from this usage which they practice in com-
mon with many thousand most estimable citizens, the
Vermont gentleman, and the Kentucky whiskered
lady — or did I say the reverse ? — whichever you like,
my dear sir — were quite quiet, modest, unassuming
people. She sat working with her needle, if I remem-
ber right. He, I suppose, slept in the great cabin,
which was seventy feet long at the least; nor, I am
bound to say, did I hear in the night any snores or
roars, such as you would fancy ought to accompany
the sleep of ogres. Nay, this giant had quite a small
appetite (unless, to be. sure, he went forward and ate a

A MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE. 229

sheep or two in private with his horrid knife — oh, the
dreadful thought ! — but in public, I say, he had quite
a delicate appetite), and was also a tee-totaller. I don't
remember to have heard the lady's voice, though I
might, not unnaturally, have been curious to hear it.
Was her voice a deep, rich, magnificent bass, or was
it soft, fluty, and mild? I shall never know now.
Even if she comes to this country I shall never go
and see her. I have seen her, and for nothing.

You would have fancied that, as, after all, we were
only some half dozen on board, she might have dis-
pensed with her red handkerchief, and talked, and
eaten her dinner in comfort ; but in covering her chin
there was a kind of modesty. That beard was her
profession ; that beard brought the public to see her ;
out of her business she wished to put that beard aside,
as it were — as a barrister would wish to put oif his
wig. I know some who carry theirs into private life,
and who mistake you and me for jury-boxes when
they address us ; but these are not your modest bar-
risters, not your true gentlemen.

Well, I own I respected the lady for the modesty
with which, her public business over, she retired into
private life. She respected her life and her beard.
That beard having done its day's work, she puts it
away in a handkerchief, and becomes, as far as in her
lies, a private ordinary person. All public men and
women of good sense, I should think, have this mod-
esty. When, for instance, in my small way, poor Mrs.
Brown comes simpering up to me, with her album
in one hand, a pen in the other, and says, " Ho, ho,
dear Mr. Roundabout, write us one of your amusing,

230 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

etc., etc.," my beard drops behind my handkerchief
instantly. Why am I to wag my chim and grin for
Mrs. Brown's good pleasure? My dear madam, I
have been making faces all day. It is my profession.
I do my comic business with the greatest pains, seri-
ousness, and trouble, and with it make, I hope, a not
dishonest livelihood. If you ask Monsieur Blondin to
tea, you don't have a rope stretched from your garret
window to the opposite side of the square, and request
Monsieur to take his tea out on the centre of the rope?
I lay my hand on this waistcoat, and declare that not
once in the course of our voyage together did I allow
the Kentucky Giant to suppose I was speculating on
his stature, or the Bearded Lady to surmise that I
wished to peep under the handkerchief which muffled
the lower part of her face.

And the more fool you, says some cynic. (Faugh !
those cynics, I hate 'em !) Don't you know, sir, that
a man of genius is pleased to have his genius recog-
nized; that a beauty likes to be admired; that an
actor likes to be applauded ; that stout old Wellington
himself was pleased, and smiled when the people
cheered him as he passed? Suppose you had paid
some respectful elegant compliment to that lady?
Suppose you had asked that giant if for once he would
take any thing at the liquor-bar? you might have
learned a great deal of curious knowledge regarding
giants and bearded ladies, about whom you evidently
now know very little. There was that little boy of
three years' old, with a fine beard already, and his little
legs and arms, as seen out of his little frock, covered
with a dark down. What a queer little capering

A MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE. 231

satyr! He was quite good-natured, childish, rather
solemn. He had a little Norval dress, I remember —
the drollest little Norval.

I have said the B. L. had another child. Now this
was a little girl of some six years old, as fair and as
smooth of skin, dear madam, as your own darling
cherubs. She wandered about the great cabin quite
melancholy. No one seemed to care for her. All the
family affections were centred on Master Esau yonder.
His little beard was beginning to be a little fortune
already, whereas Miss Eosalba was of no good to the
family. No one would pay a cent to see her little fair
face. No wonder the poor little maid was melancholy.
As I looked at her, I seemed to walk more and more
in a fairy tale, and more and more in a cavern of
ogres. Was this a little fondling whom they had
picked up in some forest, where lie the picked bones
of the queen, her tender mother, and the tough old
defunct monarch, her father? No. Doubtless they
were quite good-natured people, these. I don't be-
lieve they, were unkind to the little girl without the
mustaches. It may have been only my fancy that
she repined because she had a cheek no more bearded
than a rose's.

"Would you wish your own daughter, madam, to
have a smooth cheek, a modest air, and a gentle femi-
nine behavior, or to be — I won't say a whiskered prod-
igy, like this Bearded Lady of Kentucky— but a mas-
culine wonder, a virago, a female personage of more
than female strength, courage, wisdom ? Some au-
thors, who shall be nameless, are, I know, accused of
depicting the most feeble, brainless, namby-pamby

232 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

heroines, forever whimpering tears and prattling com-
monplaces. You would have the heroine of your nov-
el so beautiful that she should charm the captain (or
hero, whoever he may be) with her appearance ; sur-
prise and confound the bishop with her learning ; out-
ride the squire and get the brush, and, when he fell
from his horse, whip out a lancet and bleed him ; res-
cue from fever and death the poor cottager's family
whom the doctor had given up ; make 21 at the butts
with the rifle, when the poor captain only scored 18 ;
give him twenty in fifty at billiards, and beat him ;
and draw tears from the professional Italian people by
her exquisite performance (of voice and violoncello)
in the evening — I say, if a novelist would be popular
with ladies — the great novel readers of the world —
this is the sort of heroine who would carry him
through half a dozen editions. Suppose I had asked
that Bearded Lady to sing ? Confess, now, miss, you
would not have been displeased if I had told you that
she had a voice like Lablache, only ever so much
lower.

My dear, you would like to be a heroine ? You
would like to travel in triumphal caravans ; to see
your effigy placarded on city walls; to have your
levees attended by admiring crowds, all crying out,
" Was there ever such a wonder of a woman?" You
would like admiration? Consider the tax you pay
for it. You would be alone were you eminent. Were
you so distinguished that your neighbors — I will not
say by a beard and whiskers, that were odious — but
by a great and remarkable intellectual superiority —
would you, do you think, be any the happier? Con-

A MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE. 233

siderenvy. Consider solitude. Consider the jealousy
and torture of mind which this Kentucky lady must
feel, suppose she is to hear that there is, let us say, a
Missouri prodigy, with a beard larger than hers?
Consider how she is separated from her kind by the
possession of that wonder of a beard ? When that
beard grows gray, how lonely she will be, the poor
old thing ! If it falls off, the public admiration falls
off too ; and how she will miss it — the compliments
of the trumpeters, the admiration of the crowd, the
gilded progress of the car. I see an old woman alone
in a decrepit old caravan, with cobwebs on the knock-
er, with a blistered ensign flapping idly over the door.
Would you like to be that deserted person ? Ah !
Chloe. To be good, to be simple, to be modest, to be
loved, be thy lot. Be thankful thou art not taller,
nor stronger, nor richer, nor wiser than the rest of the
world.

234

ROUNDABOUT PAPEES.

ON LETTS'S DIARY.

IKE is one of your No.
12 diaries, three shil-
lings cloth boards;
silk limp, gilt edges,
three and six; French
morocco, tuck ditto,
. four and six. It has
two pages, ruled with
faint lines for mem-
oranda, for every
week, and a ruled ac-
count at the end, for
the twelve months from January to December, where
you may set down your incomings and your expenses.
I hope yours, my respected reader, are large; that
there are many fine round sums of figures on each
side of the page : liberal on the expenditure side,
greater still on the receipt. I hope, sir, you will be
"a better man," as they say, in '62 than in this mori-
bund '61, whose career of life is just coming to its
terminus. A better man in purse ? in body ? in soul's
health? Amen, good sir, in all. Who is there so
good in mind, body, or estate, but bettering won't still
be good for him ? Oh unknown Fate, presiding over
next year, if you will give me better health, a better

ON LETTS'S DIARY. 235

appetite, a better digestion, a better income, a better
temper in '62 than you have bestowed in '61, 1 think
your servant will be the better for the change. For
instance, I should be the better for a new coat. This
one, I acknowledge, is very old. The family says so.
My good friend, who among us would not be the bet-
ter if he would give up some old habits ? Yes, yes.
You agree with me. You take the allegory? Alas!
at our time of life we don't like to give up those old
habits, do we ? It is ill to change. There is the good
old loose, easy, slovenly bedgown, laziness, for exam-
ple. What man of sense likes to fling it off and put
on a tight, guinde, prim dress coat that pinches him ?
There is the cozy wrap-rascal self-indulgence — how
easy it is ! How warm ! How it always seems to fit!
You can walk out in it ; you can go down to dinner
in it. You can say of such what Tully says of his
books : Pernodat nobiscum, peregrinatur, rusticatur. It
is a little slatternly — it is a good deal stained — it isn't
becoming — it smells of cigar smoke; but, allons done!
let the world call me idle and sloven. I love my ease
better than my neighbor's opinion. I live to please
myself; not you, Mr. Danby, with your supercilious
airs. I am a philosopher. Perhaps I live in my tub,
and don't make any other use of it — We won't pur-
sue farther this unsavory metaphor ; but, with regard
to some of your old habits, let us say,

1. The habit of being censorious, and speaking ill
of your neighbors.

2. The habit of getting into a passion with your
man-servant, your maid-servant, your daughter, wife,
etc.

236 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

3. The habit of indulging too much at table.

4. The habit of smoking in the dining-room after
dinner.

5. The habit of spending insane sums of money in
brie & brae, tall copies, binding, Elzevirs, etc. ; '20 Port,
outrageously fine horses, ostentatious entertainments,
and what not ; or,

6. The habit of screwing meanly, when rich, and
chuckling over the saving of half a crown, while you
are poisoning your friends and family with bad wine.

7. The habit of going to sleep immediately after
dinner, instead of cheerfully entertaining Mrs. Jones
and the family ; or,

8. Ladies! The habit of running up bills with the
milliners, and swindling paterfamilias on the house
bills.

9. The habit of keeping him waiting for breakfast.

10. The habit of sneering at Mrs. Brown and the
Miss Browns because they are not quite du monde, or
quite so genteel as Lady Smith.

11. The habit of keeping your wretched father up
at balls till five o'clock in the morning, when he has
to be at his office at eleven.

12. The habit of fighting with each other, dear
Louisa, Jane, Arabella, Amelia.

13. The habit of always ordering John Coachman
three quarters of an hour before you want him.

Such habits, I say, sir or madam, if you have had
to note in your diary of '61, 1 have not the slightest
doubt you will enter in your pocket-book of '62.
There are habits ISTos. 4 and 7, for example. I am
morally sure that some of us will not give up those

ON LETT'S DIARY. 237

bad customs, though the women cry out and grumble,
and scold ever so justly. There are habits Nos. 9
and 13. I feel perfectly certain, my dear young
ladies, that you will continue to keep John Coach-
man waiting ; that you will continue to give the most
satisfactory reasons for keeping him waiting ; and as
for (9), you will show that you once (on the 1st of
April last, let us say) came to breakfast first, and that
you are always first in consequence.

Yes ; in our '62 diaries, I fear we may all of us
make some of the '61 entries. There is my friend
Freehand, for instance. (Aha ! Master Freehand, how
you will laugh to find yourself here !) F. is in the
habit of spending a little, ever so little, more than his
income. Lie shows you how Mrs. Freehand works
and works (and, indeed, Jack Freehand, if you say she
is an angel, you don't say too much of her) ; how they
toil, and how they mend, and patch, and pinch ; and
how they canH live on their means. And I very much
fear, nay, I will bet him half a bottle of Gladstone 14s.
per dozen claret, that the account, which is a little on
the wrong side this year, will be a little on the wrong
side in the next ensuing year of grace.

A diary. Dies To die. How queer to read are
some of the entries in the journal ! Here are the
records of dinners eaten, and gone the way of flesh.
The lights burn blue somehow, and we sit before the
ghosts of victuals. Hark at the dead jokes resurg-
ing! Memory greets them with a ghost of a smile.
Here are the lists of the individuals who have dined
at your own humble table. The agonies endured be-
fore and during those entertainments are renewed and

238 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

smart again. What a failure that special grand din-
ner was ! How those dreadful occasional waiters did
break the old china ! What a dismal hash poor Mary,
the cook, made of the French dish which she would
try out of Francatellif How angry Mrs. Pope was
at not going down to dinner before Mrs. Bishop !
How Trimalchio sneered at your absurd attempt to
give a feast; and Harpagon cried out at your ex-
travagance and ostentation! How Lady Almack
bullied the other ladies in the drawing-room (when
no gentlemen were present); never asked you back
to dinner again ; left her card by her footman ; and
took not the slightest notice of your wife and daugh-
ters at Lady Hustleby's assembly! On the other
hand, how easy, cozy, merry, comfortable, those little
dinners were ; got up at one or two days' notice ; when
every body was contented ; the soup as clear as am-
ber ; the wine as good as Trimalchio's own ; and the
people kept their carriages waiting, and would not go
away till midnight !

Along with the catalogue of by-gone pleasures,
balls, banquets, and the like, which the pages record,
comes a list of much more important occurrences and
remembrances of graver import. On two days of
Dives's diary are printed notices that " Dividends are
due at the Bank." Let us hope, dear sir, that this an-
nouncement considerably interests you ; in which case,
probably, you have no need of the almanac-maker's
printed reminder. If you look over poor Jack Eeck-
less's note-book, among his memoranda of racing odds
given and taken, perhaps you may read : " Nabbam's
bill, due 29th of September, £142 15s. 6d" Let us

239

trust, as the day has passed, that the little transaction
here noted has been satisfactorily terminated. If you
are paterfamilias, and a worthy, kind gentleman, no
doubt you have marked down on your register, 17th
of December (say), " Boys come home." Ah ! how
carefully that blessed day is marked in their little cal-
endars ! In my time it used to be, Wednesday, 13th
of November, "5 weeks from the holidays ;" "Wednes-
day, 20th of November, "4 weeks from the holidays ;"
until sluggish time sped on, and we came to Wednes-
day, 18th of December. Oh rapture ! Do you re-
member pea*shooters ? I think we only had them on
going home for holidays from private schools — at
public schools men are too dignified. And then
came that glorious announcement, Wednesday, 27th,
u Papa took us to the Pantomime ;" or if not papa,
perhaps you condescended to go to the pit, under
charge of the footman.

That was near the end of the year ; and mamma
gave you a new pocket-book, perhaps, with a little
coin, God bless her ! in the pocket. And that pock-
et-book was for next year, you know; and in that
pocket-book you had to write down that sad day,
Wednesday, January 24th, eighteen hundred and nev-
er mind what, when Dr. Birch's young friends were
expected to reassemble.

Ah me ! Every person who turns this page over
has his own little diary in paper or ruled in his mem-
ory tablets, and in which are set down the transactions
of the now dying year. Boys and men, we have our
calendar, mothers and maidens. For example, in your
calendar pocket-book, my good Eliza, what a sad, sad

240 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

day that is — how fondly and bitterly remembered —
when your boy went off to his regiment, to India, to
danger, to battle, perhaps. What a day was that last
day at home, when the tall brother sat yet among the
family, the little ones round about him wondering at
saddle -boxes, uniforms, sword -cases, gun -cases, and
other wondrous apparatus of war and travel which
poured in and filled the hall; the new dressing-case
for the beard not yet grown ; the great sword-case at
which little brother Tom looks so admiringly ! What
a dinner that was, that last dinner, when little and
grown children assembled together, and all tried to
be cheerful ! What a night was that last night, when
the young ones were at roost for the last time togeth-
er under the same roof, and the mother lay alone in
her chamber counting the fatal hours as they tolled
one after another, amid her tears, her watching, her
fond prayers. What a night that was, and yet how
quickly the melancholy dawn came ! Only too soon
the sun rose over the houses. And now, in a moment
more, the city seemed to wake. The house began to
stir. The family gathers together for the last meal.
For the last time in the midst of them the widow
kneels among her kneeling children, and falters a
prayer, in which she commits her dearest, her eldest
born, to the care of the Father of all. Oh night, what
tears you hide — what prayers you hear ! And so the
nights pass and the days succeed, until that one comes
when tears and parting shall be no more.

In your diary, as in mine, there are days marked
with sadness, not for this year only, but for all. On
a certain day, and the sun, perhaps, shining ever so

ON LETTS'S DIAKY. 241

brightly, the house-mother comes down to her family
with a sad face, which scares the children round about
in the midst of their laughter and prattle. They may
have forgotten — but she has not — a day which came,
twenty years ago it may be, and which she remem-
bers only too well ; the long night-watch ; the dread-
ful dawning, and the rain beating at the pane ; the in-
fant speechless, but moaning in its little crib; and
then the awful calm, the awful smile on the sweet
cherub face, when the cries have ceased, and the little
suffering breast heaves no more. Then the children,
as they see their mother's face, remember this was the
day on which their little brother died. It was before
they were born ; but she remembers it. And as they
pray together, it seems almost as if the spirit of the
little lost one was hovering round the group. So
they pass away: friends, kindred, the dearest-loved,
grown people, aged, infants. As we go on the down-
hill journey, the mile-stones are grave-stones, and on
each more and more names are written ; unless haply
you live beyond man's common age, when friends
have dropped off, and, tottering, and feeble, and un-
pitied, you reach the terminus alone.

In this past year's diary is there any precious day
noted on which you have made a new friend ? This
is a piece of good fortune bestowed but grudginly on
the old. After a certain age a new friend is a won-
der, like Sarah's child. Aged persons are seldom
capable of bearing friendships. Do you remember
how warmly you loved Jack and Tom when you were
at school ; what a passionate regard you had for Ned
when you were at college, and the immense letters

L

242 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

you wrote to each other? How often do you write,
now that postage costs nothing ? There is the age of
blossoms and sweet budding green ; the age of gener-
ous summer ; the autumn when the leaves drop ; and
then winter, shivering and bare. Quick, children, and
sit at my feet, for they are cold, very cold, and it seems
as if neither wine nor worsted will warm 'em.

In this past year's diary is there any dismal day-
noted in which you have lost a friend? In mine
there is. I do not mean by death. Those who are
gone, you have. Those who departed loving you,
love you still, and you love them always. They are
not really gone, those dear hearts and true ; they are
only gone into the next room ; and you will presently
get up and follow them, and yonder door will close
upon yo u, and you will be no more seen. As I am in
this cheerful mood, I will tell you a fine touching
story of a doctor which I heard lately. About two
years since there was, in our or some other city, a
famous doctor, into whose consulting-room crowds
came daily, so that they might be healed. Now this
doctor had a suspicion that there was something vital-
ly wrong with himself, and he went to consult another
famous physician at Dublin, or it may be at Edin-
burgh. And he at Edinburgh punched his comrade's
sides, and listened at his heart and lungs, and felt his
pulse, I suppose, and looked at his tongue ; and when
he had done, Doctor London said to Doctor Edin-
burgh, " Doctor, how long have I to live?" And
Doctor Edinburgh said to Doctor London, " Doctor,
you may last a year."

Then Doctor London came home, knowing that

243

what Doctor Edinburgh said was true. And he made
up his accounts, with man and heaven, I trust. And
he visited his patients as usual. And he went about
healing, and cheering, and soothing, and doctoring,
and thousands of sick people were benefited by him.
And he said not a word to his family at home, but
lived among them cheerful and tender, and calm and
loving, though he knew the night was at hand when
he should see them and work no more.

And it was winter time, and they came and told
him that some man at a distance — very sick, but very
rich — wanted him ; and, though Doctor London knew
that he was himself at death's door, he went to the
sick man ; for he knew the large fee would be good
for his children after him. And he died; and his
family never knew, until he was gone, that he had
been long aware, of the inevitable doom.

This is a cheerful carol for Christmas, is it not?
You see, in regard to these Koundabout discourses, I
never know whether they are to be merry or dismal.
My hobby has the bit in his mouth; goes his own
way ; and sometimes trots through a park, and some-
times paces by a cemetery. Two days since came the
printer's little emissary with a note, saying, " We are
waiting for the Eoundabout Paper !" A Koundabout
Paper about what or whom? How stale it has be-
come, that printed jollity about Christmas ! Carols,
and wassail bowls, and holly, and mistletoe, and yule
logs de commande — what heaps of these have we not
had for years past ! Well, year after year the season
comes. Come frost, come thaw, come snow, come
rain, year after year my neighbor the parson has to

244 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

make his sermon. They are getting together the
bonbons, iced cakes, Christmas-trees at Fortnum's and
Mason's now. The genii of the theatres are compos-
ing the Christmas pantomime, which our young folks
will see and note anon in their little diaries.

And now, brethren, may I conclude this discourse
with an extract out of that great diary, the news-
paper? I read it but yesterday, and it has mingled
with all my thoughts since then. Here are the two
paragraphs, which appeared following each other:

"Mr. E., the Advocate General of Calcutta, has
been appointed to the post of Legislative Member of
the Council of the Governor General."

"Sir R S., agent to the Governor General for Cen-
tral India, died on the 29th of October, of bronchitis."
These two men, whose different fates are recorded
in two paragraphs and half a dozen lines of the same
newspaper, were sisters' sons. In one of the stories
by the present writer, a man is described tottering
"up the steps of the ghaut," having just parted with
his child, whom he is dispatching to England from
India. I wrote this, remembering in long, long dis-
tant days such a ghaut, or river-stair, at Calcutta ; and
a day when, down those steps, to a boat which was in
waiting, came two children, whose mothers remained
on the shore. One of those ladies was never to see
her boy more ; and he, too, is just dead in India, " of
bronchitis, on the 29th of October." We were first
cousins; had been little playmates and friends from
the time of our birth ; and the first house in London
to which I was taken was that of our aunt, the mother
of his honor the Member of Council. His honor was

245

even then a gentleman of the long robe, being, in
truth, a baby in arms. We Indian children were con-
signed to a school of which our deluded parents had
heard a favorable report, but which was governed by
a horrible little tyrant, who made our young lives so
miserable that I remember kneeling by my little bed
of a night, and saying, " Pray God, I may dream of
my mother!" Thence we went to a public school,
and my cousin to Addiscombe and to India.

"For thirty -two years," the paper says, "Sir Eich-
mond Shakespear faithfully and devotedly served the
government of India, and during that period but once
visited England, for a few months and on public duty.
In his military capacity he saw much service, was
present in eight general engagements, and was badly
wounded in the last. In 1840, when a young lieu-
tenant, he had the rare good fortune to be the means
of rescuing from almost hopeless slavery in Khiva
416 subjects of the Emperor of Eussia; and, but two
years later, greatly contributed to the happy recovery
of our own prisoners from a similar fate in Cabul.
Throughout his career this officer was ever ready and
zealous for the public service, and freely risked life
and liberty in the discharge of his duties. Lord
Canning, to mark his high sense of Sir Eichmond
Shakespear's public services, had lately offered him
the Chief Commissionership of the Mysore, which he
had accepted, and was about to undertake, when death
terminated his career."

When he came to London the cousins and playfel-
lows of early Indian days met once again, and shook
hands. "Can I do any thing for you?" I remember

246 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

the kind fellow asking. He was always asking that
question: of all kinsmen; of all widows and orphans;
of all the poor ; of young men who might need his
purse or his service. I saw a young officer yesterday
to whom the first words Sir Kichmond Shakespear
wrote on his arrival in India were, "Can I do any
thing for you?" His purse was at the command of
all. His kind hand was always open. It was a gra-
cious fate which sent him to rescue widows and cap-
tives. Where could they have a champion more
chivalrous, a protector more loving and tender?

I write down his name in my little book among
those of others dearly loved, who, too, have been sum-
moned hence. And so we meet and part ; we strug-
gle and succeed ; or we fail and drop unknown on the
way. As we leave the fond mother's knee, the rough
trials of childhood and boyhood begin; and then
manhood is upon us, and the battle of life, with its
chances, perils, wounds, defeats, distinction. And Fort
William guns are saluting in one man's honor,* while
the troops are firing the last volleys over the other's
grave — over the grave of the brave, the gentle, the
faithful Christian soldier.

* \V. R., obiit March 22, 1862.

LITTLE DUTCHMEN.

NOTES OF A WEEK'S HOLIDAY.

249

NOTES OF A WEEK'S HOLIDAY.

OST of us tell
- old stories
in our fam-
lies. The
wife and
children
laugh for
the hund-
redth time
at the joke.
The old
servants
(tho' old
servants
are fewer
every day) nod and smile a recognition at the well-
known anecdote. " Don't tell that story of Grouse in
the gun-room," says Diggory to Mr. Hardcastle in the
play, "or I must laugh." As we twaddle, and grow
old and forgetful, we may tell an old story ; or, out
of mere benevolence, and a wish to amuse a friend
when conversation is flagging, disinter a Joe Miller
now and then ; but the practice is not quite honest,
and entails a certain necessitv of hypocrisy on story
L2 "

250 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

hearers and tellers. It is a sad thing to think that a
man with what you call a fund of anecdote is a hum-
bug, more or less amiable and pleasant. What right
have I to tell my " Grouse and the gun-room" over
and- over in the presence of my wife, mother, mother-
in-law, sons, daughters, old footman or parlor-maid,
confidential clerk, curate, or what not ? I smirk and
go through the history, giving my admirable imita-
tions of the characters introduced ; I mimic Jones's
grin, Hobbs's squint, Brown's stammer, Grady's
brogue, Sandy's Scotch accent, to the best of my
power, and the family part of my audience laughs
good - humoredly. Perhaps the stranger, for whose
amusement the performance is given, is amused by it,
and laughs too. But this practice continued is not
moral. This self-indulgence on your part, my dear
Paterfamilias, is weak — vain — not to say culpable. I
can imagine many a worthy man, who begins un-
guardedly to read this page, and comes to the present
sentence, lying back in his chair, thinking of that
story which he has told innocently for fifty years, and
rather piteously owning to himself, " Well, well, it is
wrong ; I have no right to call on my poor wife to
laugh, my daughters to affect to be amused, by that
old, old jest of mine. And they would have gone
on laughing, and they would have pretended to be
amused, to their dying day, if this man had not flung
his damper over our hilarity." ... I lay down the
pen, and think, "Are there any old stories which I
still tell myself in the bosom of my family ? Have I
any 'Grouse in my gun-room?'" If there are such,
it is because my memory fails, not because I want

NOTES OF A WEEK'S HOLIDAY. 251

applause, and wantonly repeat myself. You see, men
with the so-called fund of anecdote will not repeat the
same story to the same individual ; but they do think
that on a new party the repetition of a joke ever so
old may be honorably tried. I meet men walking the
London street bearing the best reputation, men of
anecdotical powers: I know such, who very likely
will read this, and say, " Hang the fellow, he means
me /" And so I do. No — no man ought to tell an
anecdote more than thrice, let us say, unless he is sure
he is speaking only to give pleasure to his hearers —
unless he feels that it is not a mere desire for praise
which makes him open his jaws.

And is it not with writers as with raconteurs?
Ought they not to have their ingenuous modesty?
May authors tell old stories, and how many times
over ? When I come to look at a place which I have
visited any time these twenty or thirty years, I recall
not the place merely, but the sensations I had at first
seeing it, and which are quite different to my feelings
to-day. That first day at Calais ; the voices of the
women crying out at night, as the vessel came along-
side the pier ; the supper at Quillacq's, and the flavor
of the cutlets and wine; the red calico canopy under
which I slept ; the tiled floor, and the fresh smell of
the sheets ; the wonderful postillion in his jack-boots
and pigtail, all return with perfect clearness to my
mind, and I am seeing them, and not the objects which
are actually under my eyes. Here is Calais. Yon-
der is that commissioner I have known this score of
years. Here are the women screaming and bustling
over the baggage ; the people at the passport-barrier

252 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

who take your papers. My good people, I hardly
see you. You no more interest me than a dozen
orange-women in Covent Grarden, or a shop book-
keeper in Oxford Street. But you make me think
of a time when you were indeed wonderful to behold
— when the little French soldiers wore white cockades
in their shakos — when the diligence was forty hours
going to Paris; and the great-booted postillion, as
surveyed by youthful eyes from the coupe', with his
jurons, his ends of rope for the harness, and his clubbed
pigtail, was a wonderful being, and productive of end-
less amusement. You young folks don't remember
the apple-girls who used to follow the diligence up the
hill beyond Boulogne, and the delights of the jolly
road? In making Continental journeys with young
folks, an oldster may be very quiet, and, to outward
appearance, melancholy ; but really he has gone back
to the days of his youth, and he is seventeen or eight-
een years of age (as the case may be), and is amusing
himself with all his might. He is noting the horses
as they come squealing out of the post-house yard at
midnight ; he is enjoying the delicious meals at Beau-
vais and Amiens, and quaffing ad libitum the rich
table d'hote wine; he is hail-fellow with the con-
ductor, and alive to all the incidents of the road. A
man can be alive in 1860 and 1830 at the same time,
don't you see? Bodily, I may be in 1860, inert, si-
lent, torpid ; but in the spirit I am walking about in
1828, let us say, in a blue dress coat and brass but-
tons, a sweet figured silk waistcoat (which I button
round a slim waist with perfect ease), looking at beau-
tiful beings with gigot sleeves and tea-tray hats under

NOTES OF A WEEK'S HOLIDAY. 253

the golden chestnuts of the Tuileries, or round the
Place Vendome, where the drapeau Wane is floating
from the statueless column. Shall we go and dine at
Bombarda's, near the Hotel Breteuil, or at the Cafe
Yirginie? Away! Bombarda's and the Hotel Bre-
teuil have been pulled down ever so long. They
knocked down the poor old Virginia Coffee-house last
year. My spirit goes and dines there. My body,
perhaps, is seated with ever so many people in a rail-
way carriage, and no wonder my companions find me
dull and silent. Have you read Mr. Dale Owen's
.Footsteps on the Confines of Another World? (My dear
sir, it will make your hair stand quite refreshingly on
end.) In that work you will read that when gentle-
men's or ladies' spirits travel off a few score or thou-
sand miles to visit a friend, their bodies lie quiet and
in a torpid state in their beds or in their arm-chairs at
home. So in this way I am absent. My soul whisks
away thirty years back into the past. I am looking
out anxiously for a beard. I am getting past the
age of loving Byron's poems, and pretend that I like
Wordsworth and Shelley much better. Nothing I
eat or drink (in reason) disagrees with me; and I
know whom I think to be the most lovely creature in
the world. Ah ! dear maid (of that remote but well-
remembered period), are you a wife or widow now ?
are you dead? are you thin, and withered, and old?
or are you grown much stouter, with a false front?
and so forth.

Oh Eliza, Eliza! Stay, was she Eliza? Well, I
protest I have forgotten what your Christian name
was. You know I only met you for two days, but

254 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

your sweet face is before me now, and the roses bloom-
ing on it are as fresh as in that time of May. Ah !

dear Miss X , my timid youth and ingenuous

modesty would never have allowed me, even in my
private thoughts, to address you otherwise than by
your paternal name, but that (though I conceal it) I
remember perfectly well, and that your dear and re-
spected father was a brewer.

Carillon. — I was awakened this morning with the
chime which Antwerp cathedral clock plays at half
hours. The tune has been haunting me ever since,
as tunes will. You dress, eat, drink, walk, and talk
to yourself to their tune ; their inaudible jingle accom-
panies you all day ; you read the sentences of the
paper to their rhythm. I tried uncouthly to imitate
the tune to the ladies of the family at breakfast, and
they say it is " the shadow dance of Dinorah." It
may be so. I dimly remember that my body was
once present during the performance of that opera,
while my eyes were closed, and my intellectual facul-
ties dormant at the back of the box ; howbeit, I have
learned that shadow dance from hearing it pealing up
ever so high in the air at night, morn, noon.

How pleasant to lie awake and listen to the cheery
peal, while the old city is asleep at midnight, or wak-
ing up rosy at sunrise, or basking in noon, or swept
by the scudding rain which drives in gusts over the
broad places, and the great shining river ; or spark-
ling in snow, which dresses up a hundred thousand
masts, peaks, and towers; or wrapped round with
thunder-cloud canopies, before which the white gables

NOTES OF A WEEK'S HOLIDAY. 255

shine whiter; day and night the kind little carillon
plays its fantastic melodies overhead. The bells go
on ringing. Quot vivos vocant, mortuos plangunt, ful-
gura frangunt ; so on to the past and future tenses,
and for how many nights, days, and years ! While
the French were pitching their fulgura into Chasse's
citadel, the bells went on ringing quite cheerfully.
While the scaffolds were up and guarded by Alva's
soldiery, and regiments of penitents, blue, black, and
gray, poured out of churches and convents, droning
their dirges, and marching to the place of the Hotel
de Yille, where heretics and rebels were to meet their
doom, the bells up yonder were chanting at their ap-
pointed half hours and quarters, and rang the mauvais
quart oVheure for many a poor soul. This bell can see
as far away as the towers and dikes of Kotterdam.
That one can call a greeting to St. Ursula's at Brus-
sels, and toss a recognition to that one at the town
hall of Oudenarde, and remember how, after a great
struggle there a hundred and fifty years ago, the whole
plain was covered with the flying French chivalry —
Burgundy, and Berri, and the Chevalier of St. George
flying like the rest. " What is your clamor about
Oudenarde?" says another bell (Bob Major this one
must be). "Be still, thou querulous old clapper! I
can see over to Hougoumont and St. John. And
about forty-five years since, I rang all through one
Sunday in June, when there was such a battle going
on in the cornfields there as none of you others ever
heard tolled of. Yes, from morning service until
after vespers, the French and English were all at it,
ding-dong." And then calls of business intervening,

256 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

the bells have to give up their private jangle, resume
their professional duty, and sing their hourly chorus
out of Dinorah.

What a prodigious distance those bells can be heard!
I was awakened this morning to their tune, I say. I
have Keen hearing it constantly ever since. And this
house whence I write, Murray says, is two hundred
and ten miles from Antwerp. And it is a week off;
and there is the bell still jangling its shadow dance
out of Dinorah. An audible shadow, you understand,
and an invisible sound, but quite distinct ; and a
plague take the tune !

Under the Bells. — Who has not seen the church
under the bell? Those lofty aisles, those twilight
chapels, that cumbersome pulpit with its huge carv-
ings, that wide gray pavement flecked with various
light from the jeweled windows, those famous pictures
between the voluminous columns over the altars which
twinkle with their ornaments, their votive little silver
hearts, legs, limbs, their little guttering tapers, cups of
sham roses, and what not ? I saw two regiments of
little scholars creeping in and forming square, each in
its appointed place, under the vast roof, and teachers
presently coming to them. A stream of light from
the jeweled windows beams slanting down upon each
little squad of children, and the tall background of
the church retires into a grayer gloom. Pattering lit-
tle feet of laggards arriving echo through the great
nave. They trot in and join their regiments, gath-
ered under the slanting sunbeams. What are they
learning ? Is it truth ? Those two gray ladies with

NOTES OF A WEEK'S HOLIDAY. 257

their books in their hands in the midst of these little
people have no doubt of the truth of every word they
have printed under their eyes. Look, through the
windows jeweled all over with saints, the light comes
streaming down from the sky, and heaven's own illu-
minations paint the book ! A sweet, touching picture
indeed it is, that of the little children assembled in
this immense temple, which has endured for ages, and
grave teachers bending over them. Yes, the picture
is very pretty of the children and their teachers, and
their book — but the text? Is it the truth, the only
truth, nothing but the truth? If I thought so, I
would go and sit down on the form cum parvulis, and
learn the precious lesson with all my heart.

Beadle. — But I submit, an obstacle to conversions
is the intrusion and impertinence of that Swiss fellow
with the baldric — the officer who answers to the
beadle of the British Islands — and is pacing about
the church with an eye on the congregation. Now
the boast of Catholics is that their churches are open
to all ; but in certain places and churches there are
exceptions. At Eome I have been into St. Peter's at
all hours : the doors are always open, the lamps are
always burning, the faithful are forever kneeling at
one shrine or the other. But at Antwerp not so. In
the afternoon you can go to the church and be civilly
treated, but you must pay a franc at the side gate. In
the forenoon the doors are open, to be sure, and there
is no one to levy an entrance fee. I was standing ever
so still, looking through the great gates of the choir
at the twinkling lights, and listening to the distant

258 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

chants of the priests performing the service, when a
sweet chorus from the organ-loft broke out behind me
overhead, and I turned round. My friend the drum-
major ecclesiastic was down upon me in a moment.
"Do not turn your back to the altar during divine
service," says he, in very intelligible English. I take
the rebuke, and turn a soft right-about face, and listen
a while as the service continues. See it I can not, nor
the altar and its ministrants. We are separated from
these by a great screen and closed gates of iron, through
which the lamps glitter and the chant comes by gusts
only. Seeing a score of children trotting down a side
aisle, I think I may follow them. I am tired of look-
ing at that hideous old pulpit, with its grotesque mon-
sters and decorations. I slip off to the side aisle ; but
my friend the drum-major is instantly after me — al-
most I thought he was going to lay hands on me.
"You mustn't go there," says he; "you mustn't dis-
turb the service." I was moving as quietly as might
be, and ten paces off there were twenty children kick-
ing and clattering at their ease. I point them out to
the Swiss. "They come to pray," says he. "You
don't come to pray ; you — " "When I come to pay,"
says I, "I am welcome," and with this withering sar-
casm I walk out of church in a huff. I don't envy
the feelings of that beadle after receiving point blank
such a stroke of wit.

Leo Belgicus. — Perhaps you will say after this I
am a prejudiced critic. I see the pictures in the ca-
thedral fuming under the rudeness of that beadle, or,
at the lawful hours and prices, pestered by a swarm

259

of shabby touters, who come behind me chattering in
bad English, and who would have me see the sights
through their mean, greedy eyes. Better see Kubens
any where than in a church. At the Academy, for
example, where you may study him at your leisure.
But at church? I would as soon ask Alexandre Du-
mas for a sermon. Either would paint you a martyr-
dom very fiercely and picturesquely — writhing mus-
cles, flaming coals, scowling captains and execution-
ers, swarming groups, and light, shade, color, most
dexterously brilliant or dark; but in Eubens I am
admiring the performer rather than the piece. With
what astonishing rapidity he travels over his canvas ;
how tellingly the cool lights and warm shadows are
made to contrast and relieve each other; how that
blazing, blowsy penitent in yellow satin and glittering-
hair carries down the stream of light across the pic-
ture ! This is the way to work, my boys, and earn a
hundred florins a day. See ! I am as sure of my line
as a skater of making his figure of eight ! and down
with a sweep goes a brawny arm or a flowing curl of
drapery. The figures arrange themselves as if by
magic. The paint-pots are exhausted in furnishing
brown shadows. The pupils look wondering on as
the master careers over the canvas. Isabel or Helena,
wife No.l or No. 2, are sitting by, buxom, exuberant,
ready to be painted ; and the children are boxing in
the corner, waiting till they are wanted to figure as
cherubs in the picture. Grave burghers and gentle-
folks come in on a visit. There are oysters and Ehen-
ish always ready on yonder table. Was there ever
such a painter? He has been an embassador, an act-

260 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

ual excellency, and what better man could be chosen ?
He speaks all the languages. He earns a hundred
florins a day. Prodigious ! Thirty -six thousand five
hundred florins a year. Enormous ! He rides out to
his castle with a score of gentlemen after him, like the
governor. That is his own portrait as St. George.
You know he is an English knight? Those are his
two wives as the two Marys. He chooses the hand-
somest wives. He rides the handsomest horses. He
paints the handsomest pictures. He gets the hand-
somest prices for them. That slim young Yan Dyck,
who was his pupil, has his genius too, and is painting
all the noble ladies in England, and turning the heads
of some of them. And Jordaens — what a droll dog
and clever fellow ! Have you seen his fat Silenus ?
The master himself could not paint better. And his
altar-piece at St. Bavon's ? He can paint you any
thing, that Jordaens can — a drunken jollification of
boors and doxies, or a martyr howling with half his
skin off. What a knowledge of anatomy ! But there
is nothing like the master — nothing. He can paint
you his thirty -six thousand five hundred florins' worth
a year. Have you heard of what he has done for the
French court ? Prodigious ! I can't look at Eubens's
pictures without fancying I see that handsome figure
swaggering before the canvas. And Hans Hemme-
linck at Bruges? Have you never seen that dear old
hospital of St. John, on passing the gate of which you
enter into the fifteenth century ? I see the wounded
soldier still lingering in the house, and tended by the
kind gray sisters. His little panel on its easel is placed
at the light. He covers his board with the most won-

NOTES OF A WEEK'S HOLIDAY. 261

drous, beautiful little figures, in robes as bright as ru-
bies and amethysts. I think he must have a magic
glass, in which he catches the reflection of little cher-
ubs with many-colored wings, very little and bright.
Angels, in long crisp robes of white, surrounded with
halos of gold, come and nutter across the mirror, and
he draws them. He hears mass every day. He fasts
through Lent. No monk is more austere and holy
than Hans. Which do you love best to behold, the
lamb or the lion? the eagle rushing through the storm,
and pouncing mayhap on carrion, or the linnet war-
bling on the spray ?

By much the most delightful of the Christopher set
of Kubens to my mind (and ego is introduced on these
occasions, so that the opinion may pass only for my
own, at the reader's humble service to be received or
declined) is the "Presentation in the Temple:" splen-
did in color, in sentiment sweet and tender, finely con-
veying the story. To be sure, all the others tell their
tale unmistakably — witness that coarse " Salutation,"
that magnificent " Adoration of the Kings" (at the
Museum), by the same strong downright hands ; that
wonderful "Communion of St. Francis," which, I think,
gives the key to the artist's /aire better than any of his
performances. I have passed hours before that picture
in my time, trying and sometimes fancying I could un-
derstand by what masses and contrasts the artist ar-
rived at his effect. In many others of the pictures
parts of this method are painfully obvious, and you
see how grief and agony are produced by blue lips,
and eyes rolling bloodshot with dabs of vermilion.
There is something simple in the practice. Contort

262 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

the eyebrow sufficiently, and place the eyeball near it
— by a few lines you have anger or fierceness depict-
ed. Give me a mouth with no special expression, and
pop a dab of carmine at each extremity, and there are
the lips smiling. This is art if you will, but a very
naive kind of art ; and now you know the trick, don't
you see how easy it is ?

Tu Quoque. — Now you know the trick, suppose
you take a canvas and see whether you can do it?
There are brushes, palettes, and gallipots full of paint
and varnish. Have you tried, my dear sir — you, who
set up to be a connoisseur ? Have you tried ? I have,
and many a day. And the end of the day's labor ?
Oh dismal conclusion ! Is this puerile niggling, this
feeble scrawl, this impotent rubbish, all you can pro-
duce— you, who but now found Eubens commonplace
and vulgar, and were pointing out the tricks of his
mystery ? Pardon, oh great chief, magnificent master
and poet ! You can do. We critics, who sneer and
are wise, can but pry, and measure, and doubt, and
carp. Look at the lion. Did you ever see such a
gross, shaggy, mangy, roaring brute? Look at him
eating lumps of raw meat — positively bleeding, and
raw, and tough — till, faugh ! it turns one's stomach to
see him — oh the coarse wretch ! Yes, but he is a lion.
Eubens has lifted his great hand, and the mark he has
made has endured for two centuries, and we still con-
tinue wondering at him, and admiring him. What
a strength in that arm ! What splendor of will hid-
den behind that tawny beard and those honest eyes!
Sharpen your pen, my good critic. Shoot a feather

NOTES OF A WEEK'S HOLIDAY. 263

into him ; hit him, and make him wince. Yes, you
may hit him fair, and make him bleed too ; but, for
all that, he is a lion — a mighty, conquering, gener-
ous, rampagious Leo Belgicus — monarch of his wood.
And he is not dead yet, and I will not kick at him.

Sir Antony.— In that "Pieta" of Yan Dyck, in the
Museum, have you ever looked at the yellow-robed
angel, with the black scarf thrown over her wings and
robe ? What a charming figure of grief and beauty !
What a pretty compassion it inspires! It soothes
and pleases me like a sweet rhythmic chant. See
how delicately the yellow robe contrasts with the blue
sky behind, and the scarf binds the two ! If Kubens
lacked grace, Yan Dyck abounded in it. What a con-
summate elegance! What a perfect cavalier! No
wonder the fine ladies in England admired Sir Anto-
ny. Look at —

Here the clock strikes three, and the three gen-
darmes who keep the Musde cry out, " Allons! Sor-
tons! II est trois heuresf Allez! Sortez /" and they
skip out of the gallery as happy as boys running from
school. And we must go too; for, though many
stay behind — many Britons with Murray's hand-
books in their handsome hands — they have paid a
franc for entrance-fee, you see, and we knew nothing
about the franc for entrance until those gendarmes
with sheathed sabres had driven us out of this Para-
dise.

But it was good to go and drive on the great quays,
and see the ships unlading, and by the citadel, and
wonder howabouts and whereabouts it was so strong.

264 ROUNDABOUT PAPEES.

"We expect a citadel to look like Gibraltar or Ehren-
breitstein at least. But in this one there is nothing
to see but a flat plain and some ditches, and some
trees, and mounds of uninteresting green. And then
I remember how there was a boy at school, a little
dumpy fellow of no personal appearance whatever,
who couldn't be overcome except by a much bigger
champion, and the immensest quantity of thrashing.
A perfect citadel of a boy, with a General Chasse sit-
ting in that bomb-proof casemate, his heart, letting
blow after blow come thumping about his head, and
never thinking of giving in.

And we go home, and we dine in the company of
Britons at the comfortable Hotel du Pare; and we
have bought a novel apiece for a shilling, and every
half hour the sweet carillon plays the waltz from
Dinorah in the air. And we have been happy ; and
it seems about a month since we left London yester-
day ; and nobody knows where we are, and we defy
care and the postman.

Spoohweg-. — Yast green flats, speckled by spotted
cows, and bound by a gray frontier of wind-mills;
shining canals stretching through the green; odors
like those exhaled from the Thames in the dog-days,
and a fine pervading smell of cheese; little trim
houses, with tall roofs, and great windows of many
panes ; gazebos, or summer-houses, hanging over pea-
green canals ; kind-looking, dumpling-faced farmers'
women, with laced caps and golden frontlets and ear-
rings ; about the houses and towns which we pass a
great air of comfort and neatness; a queer feeling of

NOTES OF A WEEK'S HOLIDAY. 265

wonder that you can't understand what your fellow-
passengers are saying, the tone of whose voices, and a
certain comfortable dowdiness of dress, are so like our
own — while we are remarking on these sights, sounds,
smells, the little railway journey from Eotterdam to
the Hague comes to an end. I speak to the railway
porters and hackney-coachmen in English, and they
reply in their own language, and it seems somehow as
if we understood each other perfectly. The carriage
drives to the handsome, comfortable, cheerful hotel.
"We sit down a score at the table, and there is one for-
eigner and his wife — I mean every other man and
woman at dinner are English. As we are close to the
sea, and in the midst of endless canals, we have no
fish. We are reminded of dear England by the noble
prices which we pay for wines. I confess I lost my
temper yesterday at Rotterdam, where I had to pay a
florin for a bottle of ale (the water not being drink-
able, and country or Bavarian beer not being genteel
enough for the hotel) — I confess, I say, that my fine
temper was ruffled when the bottle of pale ale turned
out to be a pint bottle, and I meekly told the waiter
that I had bought beer at Jerusalem at a less price.
But then Rotterdam is eighteen hours from London,
and the steamer with the passengers and beer comes
up to the hotel windows; while to Jerusalem they
have to carry the ale on camels' backs from Beyrout
or Jaffa, and through hordes of marauding Arabs,
who evidently don't care for pale ale, though I am
told it is not forbidden in the Koran. Mine would
have been very good, but I choked with rage while
drinking it. A florin for a bottle, and that bottle

M

266 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

having the words " imperial pint," in bold relief, on
the surface ! It was too much. I intended not to say
any thing about it; but I must speak. A florin a
bottle, and that bottle a pint ! Oh, for shame ! for
shame ! I can't cork down my indignation ; I froth
up with fury ; I am pale with wrath, and bitter with
scorn.

As we drove through the old city at night, how it
swarmed and hummed with life! What a special
clatter, crowd, and outcry there was in the Jewish
quarter, where myriads of young ones were trotting
about the fishy street ! Why don't they have lamps?
We passed by canals seeming so full that a pailful of
water more would overflow the place. The laquais de
place calls out the names of the buildings : the town-
hall, the cathedral, the arsenal, the synagogue, the
statue of Erasmus. Get along ! We know the statue
of Erasmus well enough. We pass over drawbridges
by canals where thousands of barges are at roost. At
roost — at rest ! Shall we have rest in those bedrooms,
those ancient lofty bedrooms, in that inn where we
have to pay a florin for a pint of pa — pshaw ! at the
New Bath Hotel on the Boompjes? If this dreary
edifice is the New Bath, what must the Old Bath be
like ? As I feared to go to bed, I sat in the coffee-
room as long as I might ; but three young men were
imparting their private adventures to each other with
such freedom and liveliness that I felt I ought not to
listen to their artless prattle. As I put the light out,
and felt the bedclothes and darkness overwhelm me,
it was with an awful sense of terror — that sort of sen-
sation which I should think going down in a diving-

267

bell would give. Suppose the apparatus goes wrong,
and they don't understand your signal to mount?
Suppose your matches miss fire when you wake;
when you want them, when you will have to rise in
half an hour, and do battle with the horrid enemy
who crawls on you in the darkness? I protest I
never was more surprised than when I woke and be-
held the light of dawn. Indian birds and strange
trees were visible on the ancient gilt hangings of the
lofty chamber, and through the windows the Boomp-
jes and the ships along the quay. We have all read
of deserters being brought out, and made to kneel,
with their eyes bandaged, and hearing the word to
" Fire" given ! I declare I underwent all the terrors
of execution that night, and wonder how I ever es-
caped unwounded.

. But if ever I go to the Bath Hotel, Eotterdam,
again, I am a Dutchman. A guilder for a bottle of
pale ale, and that bottle a pint ! Ah ! for shame !
for shame !

Mine Ease in Mine Inn. — Do you object to talk
about inns ? It always seems to me to be very good
talk. "Walter Scott is full of inns. In Don Quixote
and Gil Bias there is plenty of inn-talk. Sterne,
Fielding, and Smollett constantly speak about them ;
and, in their travels, the last two tot up the bill, and
describe the dinner quite honestly ; while Mr. Sterne
becomes sentimental over a cab, and weeps generous
tears over a donkey.

How I admire and wonder at the information in
Murray's Hand-books — wonder how it is got, and

268 EOUNDABOUT PAPEKS.

admire the travelers who get it. For instance, you
read : Amiens (please select your towns), 60,000 in-
habitants. Hotels, etc. — Lion d'Or, good and clean.
Le Lion d' Argent, so so. Le Lion Noir, bad, dirty,
and dear. Now say there are three travelers — three
inn-inspectors, who are sent forth by Mr. Murray on
a great commission, and who stop at every inn in the
world. The eldest goes to the Lion d'Or — capital
house, good table d'hote, excellent wine, moderate
charges. The second commissioner tries the Silver
Lion — tolerable house, bed, dinner, bill, and so forth.
But fancy Commissioner No. 3 — the poor fag, doubt-
less, and boots of the party. He has to go to the Lion
Noir. He knows he is to have a bad dinner — he eats
it uncomplainingly. He is to have bad wine. He
swallows it, grinding his wretched teeth, and aware
that he will be unwell in consequence. He knows he
is to have a dirty bed, and what he is to expect there.
He pops out the candle. He sinks into those dingy
sheets. He delivers over his body to the nightly tor-
mentors, he pays an exorbitant bill, and he writes
down, " Lion Noir, bad, dirty, dear." Next day the
commission sets out for Arras, we will say, and they
begin again: Le Cochon d'Or, Le Cochon d' Argent,
Le Cochon Noir — and that is poor Boots's inn, of
course. What a life that poor man must lead ! What
horrors of dinners he has to go through ! What a
hide he must have ! And yet not impervious ; for,
unless he is bitten, how is he to be able to warn oth-
ers ? No ; on second thoughts, you will perceive that
he ought to have a very delicate skin. The mon-
sters ought to troop to him eagerly, and bite him in-

NOTES OF A WEEK'S HOLIDAY. 269

stantaneously and freely, so that he may be able to
warn all future hand-book buyers of their danger. I
fancy this man devoting himself to danger, to dirt, to
bad dinners, to sour wine, to damp beds, to midnight
agonies, to extortionate bills. I admire him — I thank
him. Think of this champion, who devotes his body
for us — this dauntless gladiator going to do battle
alone in the darkness, with no other armor than a
light helmet of cotton and a lorica of calico. I pity
and honor him. Go, Spartacus! Go, devoted man
— to bleed, to groan, to suffer — and smile in silence
as the wild beasts assail thee.

How did I come into this talk ? I protest it was
the word inn set me off — and here is one, the Hotel
de Belle Yue, at the Hague, as comfortable, as hand-
some, as cheerful as any I ever took mine ease in.
And the Bavarian beer, my dear friend, how good,
and brisk, and light it is ! Take another glass — it re-
freshes and does not stupefy — and then we will sally
out, and see the town, and the park, and the pictures.

The prettiest little brick city, the pleasantest little
park to ride in, the neatest, comfortable people walk-
ing about, the canals not unsweet, and busy and pic-
turesque with Old-World life. Eows upon rows of
houses, built with the neatest little bricks, with win-
dows fresh painted,, and tall doors polished and carved
to a nicety. What a pleasant spacious garden our
inn has, all sparkling with autumn flowers, and be-
dizened with statues ! At the end is a row of trees,
and a summer-house, over the canal, where you might
go and smoke a pipe with Mynheer Yan Dunck, and
quite cheerfully catch the ague. Yesterday, as we

270 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

passed, they were making hay, and stacking it in
a barge which was lying by the meadow, handy.
Bound about Kensington Palace there are houses,
roofs, chimneys, and bricks like these. I feel that a
Dutchman is a man and a brother. It is very funny
to read the newspaper ; one can understand it some-
how. Sure it is the neatest, gayest little city — scores
and hundreds of mansions looking like Cheyne Walk,
or the ladies' schools about Ghiswick and Hackney.

Le Gros Lot. — To a few lucky men the chance
befalls of reaching fame at once, and (if it is of any
profit morituro) retaining the admiration of the world.
Did poor Oliver, when he was at Leyden yonder, ever
think that he should paint a little picture which should
secure him the applause and pity of all Europe for a
century after ? He and Sterne drew the twenty thou-
sand prize of fame. The latter had splendid install-
ments during his lifetime. The ladies pressed round
him ; the wits admired him ; the fashion hailed the
successor of Eabelais. Goldsmith's little gem was
hardly so valued until later days. Their works still
form the wonder and delight of the lovers of English
art, and the pictures of the Yicar and Uncle Toby are
among the masterpieces of our English school. Here
in the Hague Gallery is Paul Potter's pale, eager face,
and yonder is the magnificent work by which the
young fellow achieved his fame. How did you, so
young, come to paint so well ? What hidden power
lay in that weakly lad, that enabled him to achieve
such a wonderful victory ? Could little Mozart, when
he was five years old, tell you how he came to play

271

those wonderful sonatas? Potter was gone out of the
world before he was thirty, but left this prodigy (and
I know not how many more specimens of his genius
and skill) behind him. The details of this admirable
picture are as curious as the effect is admirable and
complete. The weather being unsettled, and clouds
and sunshine in the gusty sky, we saw in our little
tour numberless Paul Potters — the meadows streaked
with sunshine and spotted with the cattle, the city
twinkling in the distance, the thunder-clouds glooming
overhead. Napoleon carried off the picture {vide Mur-
ray) among the spoils of his bow and spear to decorate
his triumph of the Louvre. If I were a conquering
prince, I would have this picture certainly, and the
Kaphael Madonna from Dresden, and the Titian As-
sumption from Venice, and that matchless Rembrandt
. of the Dissection. The prostrate nations would howl
with rage as my gendarmes took off the pictures, nice-
ly packed and addressed to " Mr. the Director of my
Imperial Palace of the Louvre, at Paris. This side
uppermost." The Austrians, Prussians, Saxons, Ital-
ians, etc., should be free to come and visit my capital,
and bleat with tears before the pictures torn from their
native cities. Their embassadors would meekly re-
monstrate, and with faded grins make allusions to the
feeling of despair occasioned by the absence of the be-
loved works of art. Bah ! I would offer them a pinch
of snuff out of my box as I walked along my gallery,
with their excellencies cringing after me. Zenobia
was a fine woman and a queen, but she had to walk in
Aurelian's triumph. The procede waspeu delicat ? En
usez vous, mon cher monsieur ? (The marquis says the

272 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

Macaba is delicious.) What a splendor of color there
is in that cloud ? What a richness, what a freedom
of handling, and what a marvelous precision ! I trod
upon your excellency's corn? a thousand pardons.
His excellency grins and declares that he rather likes
to have his corns trodden on. Were you ever very
angry with Soult — about that Murillo which we have
bought? The veteran loved that picture because it
saved the life of a fellow-creature — the fellow-creature
who hid it, and whom the duke intended to hang un-
less the picture was forthcoming.

We gave several thousand pounds for it — how many
thousand? About its merit is a question of taste
which we will not here argue. If you choose to place
Murillo in the first class of painters, founding his claim
upon these Virgin altar-pieces, I am your humble serv-
ant. Tom Moore painted altar-pieces as well as Mil-
ton, and warbled Sacred Songs and Loves of the An-
gels after his fashion. I wonder did Watteau ever try
historical subjects? And as for Greuze, you know
that his heads will fetch £1000, £1500, £2000— as
much as a Sevres cabaret of Eose du Barri. If cost
price is to be your criterion of worth, what shall we
say to that little receipt for £10 for the copyright of
Paradise Lost, which used to hang in old Mr. Kogers's
room ? When living painters, as frequently happens
in our days, see their pictures sold at auctions for four
or five times the sums which they originally received,
are they enraged or elated? A hundred years ago
the state of the picture-market was different: that
dreary old Italian stock was much higher than at pres-
ent ; Eembrandt himself, a close man, was known to

NOTES OF A WEEK'S HOLIDAY. 273

be in difficulties. If ghosts are fond of money still,
what a wrath his must be at the present value of his
works !

The Hague Rembrandt is the greatest and grandest
of all his pieces, to my mind. Some of the heads are
as sweetly and lightly painted as Gainsborough ; the
faces not ugly, but delicate and high bred; the ex-
quisite gray tones are charming to mark and study ;
the heads not plastered, but painted with a free, liquid
brush : the result, one of the great victories won by
this consummate chief, and left for the wonder and
delight of succeeding ages.

The humblest volunteer in the ranks of art, who
has served a campaign or two ever so ingloriously,
has at least this good fortune of understanding, or
fancying he is able to understand, how the battle has
been fought, and how the engaged general won it
This is the Rhinelander's most brilliant achievement
— victory along the whole line. The Night-watch at
Amsterdam is magnificent in parts, but on the side to
the spectator's right, smoky and dim. The Five Mas-
ters of the Drapers is wonderful for depth, strength,
brightness, massive power. What words are these to
express a picture ! to describe a description ! I once
saw a moon riding in the sky serenely, attended by
her sparkling maids of honor, and a little lady said,
with an air of great satisfaction, u I must sketch it"
Ah ! my dear lady, if with an H. B., a Bristol board,
and a bit of India-rubber, you can sketch the starry
firmament on high, and the moon in her glory, I
make you my compliment ! I can't sketch The Five
Drapers with any ink or pen at present at command,

M2

274 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

but can look with all my eyes, and be thankful to
have seen such a masterpiece.

They say he was a moody, ill-conditioned man, the
old tenant of the mill. What does he think of the
Yander Heist which hangs opposite his Night-watch,
and which is one of the great pictures of the world ?
It is not painted by so great a man as Eembrandt ;
but there it is : to see it is an event of your life.
Having beheld it, you have lived in the year 1648,
and celebrated the treaty of Munster. You have
shaken the hands of the Dutch Guardsmen, eaten from
their platters, drunk their Khenish, heard their jokes
as they wagged their jolly beards. The Amsterdam
Catalogue discourses thus about it : a model catalogue :
it gives you the prices paid, the signatures of the
painters, a succinct description of the work.

" This masterpiece represents a banquet of the civic
guard, which took place on the 18th of June, 1648, in
the great hall of the St. Joris Doele, on the Singel at
Amsterdam, to celebrate the conclusion of the Peace
at Munster. The thirty-five figures composing the
picture are all portraits.

" The Captain Witse is placed at the head of the
table, and attracts our attention first. He is dressed
in black velvet, his breast covered with a cuirass,
on his head a broad-brimmed black hat with white
plumes. He is comfortably seated on a chair of black
oak, with a velvet cushion, and holds in his left hand,
supported on his knee, a magnificent drinking-horn,
surrounded by a St. George destroying the dragon,
and ornamented with olive-leaves. The captain's feat-
ures express cordiality and good-humor ; he is grasp-

275

ing the hand of Lieutenant Van Waveren seated
near him, in a habit of dark gray, with lace and
buttons of gold, lace collar and wristbands, his feet
crossed, with boots of yellow leather, with large tops,
and gold spurs, on his head a black hat and dark
brown plumes. Behind him, at the centre of the pic-
ture, is the standard-bearer, Jacob Banning, in an
easy martial attitude, hat in hand, his right hand on
his chair, his right leg on his left knee. He holds the
flag of blue silk, in which the Virgin is embroidered
(such a silk ! such a flag ! such a piece of painting !),
emblematic of the town of Amsterdam. The banner
covers his shoulder, and he looks toward the spectator
frankly and complacently.

" The man behind him is probably one of the ser-
geants. His head is bare. He wears a cuirass, and
yellow gloves, gray stockings, and boots with large
tops, and kneecaps of cloth. He has a napkin on
his knees, and in his hand a piece of ham, a slice of
bread, and a knife. The old man behind is prob-
ably William the Drummer. He has his hat in his
right hand, and in his left a gold-footed wineglass,
filled with white wine. He wears a red scarf, and a
black satinet doublet, with little slashes of yellow silk.
Behind the drummer, two matchlock men are seated
at the end of the table. One in a large black habit, a
napkin on his knee, a hausse-col of iron, and a linen
scarf and collar. He is eating with his knife. The
other holds a long glass of white wine. Four mus-
keteers, with different shaped hats, are behind these,
one holding a glass, the three others with their guns
on their shoulders. Other guests are placed between

276 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

the personage who is giving the toast and the stand-
ard-bearer. One with his hat off, and his hand up-
lifted, is talking to another. The second is carving a
fowl. A third holds a silver plate ; and another, in
the background, a silver flagon, from which he fills a
cup. The corner behind the captain is filled by two
seated personages, one of whom is peeling an orange.
Two others are standing, armed with halberts, of
whom one holds a plumed hat. Behind him are other
three individuals, one of them holding a pewter pot,
on which the name Poock, the landlord of the Hotel
Doele, is engraved. At the back, a maid -servant
is coming in with a pasty, crowned with a turkey.
Most of the guests are listening to the captain. From
an open window in the distance the facades of two
houses are seen, surmounted by stone figures of
sheep."

There, now you know all about it ; now you can go
home and paint just such another. If you do, do pray
remember to paint the hands of the figures as they are
here depicted ; they are as wonderful portraits as the
faces. None of your slim Yan Dyck elegancies, which
have done duty at the cuffs of so many doublets;
but each man with a hand for himself, as with a face
for himself. I blushed for the coarseness of one of
the chiefs in this great company, that fellow behind
William the Drummer, splendidly attired, sitting
full in the face of the public, and holding a pork-bone
in his hand. Suppose the Saturday Review critic were
to come suddenly on this picture ? Ah ! what a shock
it would give that noble nature ! Why is that knuckle
of pork not painted out ? at any rate, why is not a

NOTES OF A WEEK'S HOLIDAY. 277

little fringe of lace painted round it, or a cut pink pa-
per? or couldn't a smelling-bottle be painted in in-
stead, with a crest and a gold top, or a cambric pocket-
handkerchief, in lieu of the horrid pig, with a pink
coronet in the corner? or suppose you covered the
man's hand (which is very coarse and strong), and
gave him the decency of a kid glove? But a piece
of pork in a naked hand ? Oh nerves and eau de
Cologne, hide it, hide it !

In spite of this lamentable coarseness, my noble
sergeant, give me thy hand as nature made it. A
great, and famous, and noble handiwork I have seen
here. Not the greatest picture in the world — not a
work of the highest genius — but a performance so
great, various, and admirable, so shrewd of humor, so
wise of observation, so honest and complete of expres-
sion, that to have seen it has been a delight, and to
remember it will be a pleasure for days to come.
Well done, Bartholomeus Vander Heist ! Brave, mer-
itorious, victorious, happy Bartholomew, to whom it
has been given to produce a masterpiece !

May I take off my hat and pay a respectful compli-
ment to Jan Steen, Esq. ? He is a glorious composer.
His humor is as frank as Fielding's. Look at his own
figure sitting in the window-sill yonder, and roaring
with laughter ! What a twinkle in the eyes ! what a
mouth it is for a song, or a joke, or a noggin ! I think
the composition in some of Jan's pictures amounts to
the sublime, and look at them with the same delight
and admiration which I have felt before works of the
very highest style. This gallery is admirable; and
the city in which the gallery is is perhaps even

278 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

more wonderful and curious to behold than the gal-
lery.

The first landing at Calais (or, I suppose, on any
foreign shore) — the first sight of an Eastern city — the
first view of Venice — and this of Amsterdam, are
among the delightful shocks which I have had as a
traveler. Amsterdam is as good as Yenice, with a
superadded humor and grotesqueness, which gives the
sight-seer the most singular zest and pleasure. A run
through Pekin I could hardly fancy to be more odd,
strange, and yet familiar. This rush, and crowd, and
prodigious vitality ; this immense swarm of life ; these
busy waters, crowding barges, swinging drawbridges,
piled ancient gables, spacious markets teeming with
people ; that ever- wonderful Jews' quarter ; that dear
old world of painting and the past, yet alive, and
throbbing, and palpable — actual, and yet passing be-
fore you swiftly and strangely as a dream ! Of the
many journeys of this Eoundabout life, that drive
through Amsterdam is to be specially and gratefully
remembered. You have never seen the palace of
Amsterdam, my dear sir? Why, there's a marble
hall in that palace that will frighten you as much as
any hall in Vathek, or a nightmare. At one end of
that old, cold, glassy, glittering, ghostly marble hall
there stands a throne, on which a white marble king
ought to sit with his white legs gleaming down into
the w'hite marble below, and his white eyes looking
at a great white marble Atlas, who bears on his icy
shoulders a blue globe as big as the full moon. If he
were not a genie, and enchanted, and with a strength
altogether hyperatlantean, he would drop the moon

279
«
with a shriek on to the white marble floor, and it
would splitter into perdition. And the palace would
rock, and heave, and tumble ; and the waters would
rise, rise, rise ; and the gables sink, sink, sink ; and
the barges would rise up to the chimneys; and the
water-souchee fishes would flap over the Boompjes,
where the pigeons and storks used to perch ; and the
Amster, and the Eotter, and the Saar, and the Op,
and all the dams of Holland would burst, and the
Zuyder Zee roll over the dikes ; and you would wake
out of your dream, and find yourself sitting in your
arm-chair.

Was it a dream ? it seems like one. Have we been
to Holland? have we heard the chimes at midnight
at Antwerp? Were we really away for a week, or
have I been sitting up in the room dozing before this
stale old desk ? Here's the desk — yes. But, if it has
been a dream, how could I have learned to hum that
tune out of Dinorah ? Ah ! is it that tune, or myself
that I am humming ? If it was a dream, how comes
this yellow Notice des Tableaux du Musee d'
Amsterdam avec fac-simile des Monogrammes
before me, and this signature of the gallant

Yes, indeed, it was a delightful little holiday ; it
lasted a whole week. With the exception of that
little pint of amari aliquid at Eotterdam, we were all
very happy. We might have gone on being happy
for whoever knows how many days more? a week

280 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

more, ten days more — who knows how long that dear
teetotum happiness can be made to spin without top-
pling over?

But one of the party had desired letters to be sent
poste restante, Amsterdam. The post-office is hard by
that awful palace where the Atlas is, and which we
really saw.

There was only one letter, you see. Only one
chance of finding us. There it was. "The post has
only this moment come in," says the smirking com-
missioner. And he hands over the paper, thinking
he has done something clever.

Before the letter had been opened, I could read
Come back as clearly as if it had been painted on
the wall. It was all over. The spell was broken.
The sprightly little holiday fairy that had frisked and
gamboled so kindly beside us for eight days of sun-
shine— or rain, which was as cheerful as sunshine —
gave a parting piteous look, and whisked away and
vanished. And yonder scuds the postman, and here
is the old desk.

NIL NISI BONUM. 281

NIL NISI BONUM

Almost the last words which Sir Walter spoke to
Lockhart, his biographer, were, "Bea good man, my
dear I" and with the last flicker of breath on his dying
lips, he sighed a farewell to his family, and passed
away blessing them.

Two men, famous, admired, beloved, have just left
us, the Goldsmith and the Gibbon of our time.* Ere
a few weeks are over, many a critic's pen will be at
work, reviewing their lives, and passing judgment on
their works. This is no review, or history, or criti-
cism ; only a word in testimony of respect and regard
from a man of letters, who owes to his own profession-
al labor the honor of becoming acquainted with these
two eminent literary men. One was the first embas-
sador whom the New World of Letters sent to the Old.
He was born almost with the republic ; the pater patrice
had laid his hand on the child's head. He bore Wash-
ington's name ; he came among us bringing the kind-
est sympathy, the most artless, smiling good-will. His
new country (which some people here might be dis-
posed to regard rather superciliously) could send us,
as he showed in his own person, a gentleman, who,

* Washington Irving died November 28, 1859 ; Lord Macaulay
died December 28, 1859.

282 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

though himself born in no very high sphere, was most
finished, polished, easy, witty, quiet, and, socially, the
equal of the most refined Europeans. If Irving's wel-
come in England was a kind one, was it not also grate-
fully remembered ? If he ate our salt, did he not pay
us with a thankful heart? Who can calculate the
amount of friendliness and good feeling for our coun-
try which this writer's generous and untiring regard
for us disseminated in his own ? His books are read
by millions* of his countrymen, whom he has taught
to love England, and why to love her. It would have
been easy to speak otherwise than he did ; to inflame
national rancors, which, at the time when he first be-
came known as a public writer, war had just renewed ;
to cry down the old civilization at the expense of the
new ; to point out our faults, arrogance, shortcomings,
and give the republic to infer how much she was the
parent state's superior. There are writers enough in
the United States, honest and otherwise, who preach
that kind of doctrine. But the good Irving, the peace-
ful, the friendly, had no place for bitterness in his
heart, and no scheme but kindness. Eeceived in En-
gland with extraordinary tenderness and friendship
(Scott, South ey, Byron, a hundred others have borne
witness to their liking for him), he was a messenger
of good will and peace between his country and ours.
" See, friends !" he seems to say, "these English are
not so wicked, rapacious, callous, proud, as you have
been taught to believe them. I went among them a
humble man ; won my way by my pen ; and, when

* See his Life in the most remarkable Dictionary of Authors, pub-
lished lately at Philadelphia, by Mr. Alibone.

NIL NISI BONUM. 283

known, found every hand held out to me with kind-
liness and welcome. Scott is a great man, you ac-
knowledge. Did not Scott's king of England give a
gold medal to him, and another to me, your country-
man, and a stranger?"

Tradition in the United States still fondly retains
the history of the feasts and rejoicings which awaited
Irving on his return to his native country from Eu-
rope. He had a national welcome ; he stammered in
his speeches, hid himself in confusion, and the people
loved him all the better. He had worthily represent-
ed America in Europe. In that young community, a
man who brings home with him abundant European
testimonials is still treated with respect (I have found
American writers, of wide- world reputation, strangely
solicitous about the opinions of quite obscure British
critics, and elated or depressed by their judgments);
and Irving went home medaled by the king, diploma-
tized by the University, crowned, and honored, and
admired. He had not in any way intrigued for his
honors, he had fairly won them ; and, in Irving's in-
stance, as in others, the old country was glad and eager
to pay them.

In America the love and regard for Irving was a
national sentiment. Party wars are perpetually rag-
ing there, and are carried on by the press with a ran-
cor and fierceness against individuals which exceed
British, almost Irish virulence. It seemed to me, dur-
ing a year's travel in the country, as if no one ever
aimed a blow at Irving. All men held their hand
from that harmless, friendly peacemaker. I had the
good fortune to see him at New York, Philadelphia,

284 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

Baltimore, and Washington,* and remarked how in
every place he was honored and welcomed. Every
large city has its " Irving House." The country takes
pride in the fame of its men of letters. The gate of
his own charming little domain on the beautiful Hud-
son Kiver was forever swinging before visitors who
came to him. He shut out no one.f I had seen many
pictures of his house, and read descriptions of it, in
both of which it was treated with a not unusual Amer-
ican exaggeration. It was but a pretty little cabin of
a place ; the gentleman of the press who took notes
of the place, while his kind old host was sleeping,
might have visited the house in a couple of minutes.
And how came it that this house was so small, when
Mr. Irving's books were sold by hundreds of thou-
sands, nay, millions, when his profits were known to
be large, and the habits of life of the good old bache-
lor were notoriously modest and simple? He had
loved once in his life. The lady he loved died ; and
he, whom all the world loved, never sought to replace

* At Washington, Mr. Irving came to a lecture given by the writer,
which Mr. Fillmore and General Pierce, the president and president
elect, were also kind enough to attend together. "Two kings of
Brentford smelling at one rose," says Irving, looking up with his
good-humored smile.

f Mr. Irving described to me, with that humor and good humor
which he always kept, how, among other visitors, a member of the
British press, who had carried his distinguished pen to America (where
he employed it in vilifying his own country), came to Sunnyside, in-
troduced himself to Irving, partook of his wine and luncheon, and in
two days described Mr. Irving, his house, his nieces, his meal, and his
manner of dozing afterward, in a New York paper. On another oc-
casion, Irving said, laughing, "Two persons came to me, and one held
me in conversation while the other miscreant took my portrait!"

NIL NISI BONUM. 285

her. I can't say how much the thought of that fidel-
ity has touched me. Does not the very cheerfulness
of his after life add to the pathos of that untold story ?
To grieve always was not in his nature ; or, when he
had his sorrow, to bring all the world in to condole
with him and bemoan it. Deep and quiet he lays the
love of his heart, and buries it, and grass and flowers
grow over the scarred ground in due time.

Irving had such a small house and such narrow
rooms because there was a great number of people to
occupy them. He could only afford to keep one old
horse (which, lazy and aged as it was, managed once
or twice to run away with that careless old horseman).
He could only afford to give plain sherry to that ami-
able British paragraph-monger from New York, who
saw the patriarch asleep over his modest, blameless
cup, and fetched the public into his private chamber
to look at him. Irving could only live very modest-
ly, because the wifeless, childless man had a number
of children to whom he was as a father. He had as
many as nine nieces, I am told — I saw two of these
ladies at his house — with all of whom the dear old
man had shared the produce of his labor and genius.

"Be a good man, my dear.11 One can't but think of
these last words of the veteran Chief of Letters, who
had tasted and tested the value of worldly success, ad-
miration, prosperity. "Was Irving not good, and, of
his works, was not his life the best part ? In his fam-
ily, gentle, generous, good-humored, affectionate, self-
denying ; in society, a delightful example of complete
gentlemanhood ; quite unspoiled by prosperity ; never
obsequious to the great (or, worse still, to the base and

286 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

mean, as some public men are forced to be in his and
other countries); eager to acknowledge every con-
temporary's merit ; always kind and affable with the
young members of his calling; in his professional
bargains and mercantile dealings delicately honest and
grateful ; one of the most charming masters of our
lighter language; the constant friend to us and our
nation ; to men of letters doubly dear, not for his wit
and genius merely, but as an exemplar of goodness,
probity, and pure life. I don't know what sort of tes-
timonial will be raised to him in his own country,
where generous and enthusiastic acknowledgment of
American merit is never wanting ; but Irving was in
our service as well as theirs ; and as they have placed
a stone at Greenwich yonder in memory of that gal-
lant young Bellot, who shared the perils and fate of
some of our Arctic seamen, I would like to hear of
some memorial raised by English writers and friends
of letters in affectionate remembrance of the dear and
good Washington Irving.

As for the other writer, whose departure many
friends, some few most dearly -loved relatives, and
multitudes of admiring readers deplore, our republic
has already decreed his statue, and he must have
known that he had earned this posthumous honor.
He is not a poet and man of letters merely, but
citizen, statesman, a great British worthy. Almost
from the first moment when he appears, among boys,
among college students, among men, he is marked,
and takes rank as a great Englishman. All sorts of
successes are easy to him : as a lad he goes down into
the arena with others, and wins all the prizes to which

NIL NISI BONUM. 287

he has a mind.- A place in the Senate is straightway
offered to the young man. He takes his seat there ;
he speaks, when so minded, without party anger or
intrigue, but not without party faith and a sort of
heroic enthusiasm for his cause. Still he is poet and
philosopher even more than orator. That he may
have leisure and means to pursue his darling studies,
he absents himself for a while, and accepts a richly-
remunerative post in the East. As learned a man
may live in a cottage or a college common-room ; but
it always seemed to me that ample means and recog-
nized rank were Macaulay's as of right. Years ago
there was a wretched outcry raised because Mr. Ma-
caulay dated a letter from Windsor Castle, where he
was staying. Immortal gods ! Was this man not a
fit guest for any palace in the world? or a fit com-
panion for any man or woman in it? I dare say,
after Austerlitz, the old K. K. court officials and foot-
men sneered at Napoleon for dating from Schonbrunn.
But that miserable " Windsor Castle" outcry is an
echo out of fast-retreating Old- World remembrances.
The place of such a natural chief was among the first
of the land ; and that country is best, according to our
British notion, at least, where the man of eminence
has the best chance of investing his genius and intel-
lect.

If a company of giants were got together, very like-
ly one or two of the mere six-feet-six people might be
angry at the incontestable superiority of the very tall-
est of the party ; and so I have heard some London
wits, rather peevish at Macaulay's superiority, com-
plain that he occupied too much of the talk, and so

288 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

forth. Now that wonderful tongue is to speak no
more, will not many a man grieve that he no longer
has the chance to listen ? To remember the talk is to
wonder ; to think not only of the treasures he had in
his memory, but of the trifles he had stored there, and
could produce with equal readiness. Almost on the
last day I had the fortune to see him, a conversation
happened suddenly to spring up about senior wran-
glers, and what they had done in after life. To the
almost terror of the persons present, Macaulay began
with the senior wrangler of 1801-2-3-4, and so on, giv-
ing the name of each, and relating his subsequent ca-
reer and rise. Every man who has known him has
his story regarding that astonishing memory. It may
be that he was not ill pleased that you should recog-
nize it; but to those prodigious intellectual feats,
which were so easy to him, who would grudge his
tribute of homage ? His talk was, in a word, admi-
rable, and we admired it.

Of the notices which have appeared regarding Lord
Macaulay, up to the day when the present lines are
written (the 9th of January), the reader should not
deny himself the pleasure of looking especially at
two. It is a good sign of the times when such articles
as these (I mean the articles in The Times and Satur-
day Review) appear in our public prints about our
public men. They educate us, as it were, to admire
rightly. An uninstructed person in a museum or at
a concert may pass by without recognizing a picture
or a passage of music, which the connoisseur by his
side may show him is a masterpiece of harmony or a
wonder of artistic skill. After reading these papers.

■ NIL NISI BONUM. 289

you like and respect more the person you have ad-
mired so much already. And so, -with regard to Ma-
caulay's style, there may be faults of course — what
critic can't point them out? But for the nonce we
are not talking about faults ; we want to say nil nisi
bonum. Well, take at hazard any three pages of the
Essays or History ; and, glimmering below the stream
of the narrative, as it were, you, an average reader,
see one, two, three, a half score of allusions to other
historic facts, characters, literature, poetry, with which
you are acquainted. Why is this epithet used?
Whence is that simile drawn? How does he man-
age, in two or three words, to paint an individual, or
to indicate a landscape? Your neighbor, who has
his reading, and his little stock of literature stowed
away in his mind, shall detect more points, allusions,
happy touches, indicating not only the prodigious
memory and vast learning of this master, but the won-
derful industry, the honest, humble previous toil of
this great scholar. He reads twenty books to write
a sentence; he travels a hundred miles to make a line
of description.

Many Londoners — not all — have seen the British
Museum Library. I speak a cceur ouverl, and pray
the kindly reader to bear with me. I have seen- all
sorts of domes of Peters and Pauls, Sophia, Pantheon
— what not? — and have been struck by none of -them
so much as by that catholic dome in Bloomsbury, un-
der which our million volumes are housed. What
peace, what love, what truth, what beauty, what hap-
piness for all, what generous kindness for you and me,
are here spread out ! It seems to me one can not sit

N

290 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.

down in that place without a heart full of grateful
reverence. I own to have said my grace at the table,
and to have thanked heaven for this my English
birthright, freely to partake of these bountiful books,
and to speak the truth I find there. Under the dome
which held Macaulay's brain, and from which his sol-
emn eyes looked out on Jhe world but a fortnight
since, what a vast, brilliant, and wonderful store of
learning was ranged ! what strange lore would he not
fetch for you at your bidding ! A volume of law or
history, a book of poetry familiar or forgotten (except
by himself who forgot nothing), a novel ever so old,
and he had it at hand. I spoke to him once about
Clarissa. "Not read Clarissa!" he cried out. "If
you have once thoroughly entered on Clarissa, and
are infected by it, you can't leave it. When I was in
India I passed one hot season at the hills, and there
were the governor general, and the secretary of gov-
ernment, and the commander-in-chief, and their wives.
I had Clarissa with me ; and, as soon as they began
to read, the whole station was in a passion of excite-
ment about Miss Harlowe and her misfortunes, and
her scoundrelly Lovelace ! The governor's wife seized
the book, and the secretary waited for it, and the
chief justice could not read it for tears!" He acted
the whole scene; he paced up and down the Athe-
naeum library ; I dare say he could have spoken pages
of the book — of that book, and of what countless piles
of others !

In this little paper let us keep to the text of nil
nisi bonum. One paper I have read regarding Lord
Macaulay says "he had no heart." Why, a man's

NIL NISI BONUM. 291

books may not always speak the truth, but they speak
his mind in spite of himself; and it seems to me this
man's heart is beating through every page he penned.
He is always in a storm of revolt and indignation
against wrong, craft, tyranny. How he cheers heroic
resistance ; how he backs and applauds freedom strug-
gling for its own ; how he hates scoundrels, ever so
victorious and successful ; how he recognizes genius,
though selfish villains possess it! The critic who says
Macaulay had no heart, might say that Johnson had
none ; and two men more generous, and more loving,
and more hating, and more partial, and more noble,
do not live in our history. Those who knew Lord
Macaulay knew how admirably tender, and generous,*
and affectionate he was. It was not his business to
bring his family before the theatre footlights, and call
for bouquets from the gallery as he wept over them.
If any young man of letters reads this little sermon
— and to him, indeed, it is addressed — I would say to
him, "Bear Scott's words in your mind, and * be good,
my dear.1 " Here are two literary men gone to their
account, and, laus Deo, as far as we know, it is fair,
and open, and clean. Here is no need of apologies
for shortcomings, or explanations of vices which would
have been virtues but for unavoidable etc. Here are
two examples of men most differently gifted : each
pursuing his calling ; each speaking his truth as God
bade him ; each honest in his life ; just and irreproach-

* Since the above was written, I have been informed that it has
been found, on examining Lord Macaulay's papers, that he was in
the habit of giving away ynore than a fourth part of his annual in-
come.

292 BOUNDABOUT PAPEBS.

able in his dealings ; dear to his friends ; honored by
his country ; beloved at his fireside. It has been the
fortunate lot of both to give incalculable happiness
and delight the world, which thanks them in return
with an immense kindliness, respect, affection. It
may not be our chance, brother scribe, to be endowed
with such merit, or rewarded with such fame. But
the rewards of these men are rewards paid to our serv-
ice. We may not win the baton or epaulettes, but
God give us strength to guard the honor of the flag !

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